Just Won't Die 2
by OneShot
Summary: A Ranma/NGE crossover. Ranma accidentally ends up in the NGE universe. There, he soon becomes an asset to Nerv for his powers help significantly in their battle against the Angels.


Jeffrey "OneShot" Wong

Just won't die 2

"Great! Just great!" Ranma sighed. He looked around and took in his surroundings. He realized he was standing on a cliff that overlooked the outskirts of a vastly technologically advanced city.  
"Hm, reminds me of MegaTokyo," he couldn't help but comment.  
He really wished his curiosity hadn't gotten the better of him. Why did he have to open that damn box? Why? He should have left it where it belonged, in the Amazon village Shampoo used to live in, before she had died in the 'Nerima Massacre' along with everyone else.  
He looked down at what remained of the box. "Great! Just great! I'm stuck here! How the hell am I gonna get back?" he muttered.  
When he had opened the box, he was instantly ripped from his own world and plunged into this one. It didn't help that he reappeared several hundred feet up in mid air, only to hit the ground with such impact that the box had broken.  
Ranma stretched out his arms. Sure, he was stuck in this world, but he would somehow find a way back. "Oh, I could look for the nanban mirror," Ranma realized, his eyes lighting up. It didn't really bother him that it was probably near impossible trying to find a single mirror. But it didn't matter. He had time. It wasn't as if he was ever going to die from natural causes any time soon. Heck, he was well into his middle ages but he would probably live well past the age Happousei had been when he died. Heck, considering his health, he could probably live longer than Cologne and Happousei put together. He was also as fit as a virile twenty year old, and looking like one to boot.  
Ranma scratched the back of his head, "Hm, now how the hell am I gonna find it?" It bothered him that here he was out on some alternate world, while Ryoga and Akane remained back on their own world.  
"Well, that won't matter all that much," he said to himself, "When I find the mirror, I'll just travel back to the exact time and place as when I opened that box. Only a second would have elapsed..."  
All of a sudden, alarms could be heard reverberating throughout the town.  
His eyes widened, "Cool!" He caught sight of these massive buildings slowly lowering into the ground. He stood there, watching intently. He raised his gaze upward where he saw what looked like the sky opening up, only to see this massive beam of light shooting downward through the opening and hitting one of the retracting buildings, destroying it. The blast had been so powerful that Ranma had to shield his eyes from the brilliance, feeling the heat up against his skin.  
Ranma's jaw dropped as he saw this weird looking creature descending from the sky, landing somewhere within the city limits, hidden behind one of the buildings.  
"Oh man, oh man! No way...t-that can't be what I think it is...c-  
could it?" he said, this shock in his voice. "T-this world is being invaded by aliens!"  
Curiosity getting the better of him yet again, Ranma leapt off the cliff, freefalling toward the ground below head first.  
He skillfully somersaulted forward and landed on his feet moments before impact, and then ran toward where he believe that alien had landed. He wanted to get a closer look. He'd look for the mirror later.

"Hey, Wonder Girl, do you see it?" Asuka asked, skillfully maneuvering her EVA through the city streets. "No," Rei's voice filtered into the cockpit.  
Asuka knew Rei was somewhere by the outskirts of the city. Rei's EVA had its high powered rifle with it, and was leaning against the side of the mountain, waiting for a moment to fire. Of course, Rei's attack would be useless due to those damn AT fields surrounding the Angels. It was Asuka and Shinji's job to break down the AT field to allow Rei a clear shot.  
Asuka looked down at her EVA's weapon. A single knife. Sure, the blade was probably around twenty feet long, but it was a knife regardless.  
"Hmph, this knife won't do anything. I might as well fight this Angel hand to hand. It'll be more effective." Asuka made the comment to herself.  
Misato's voice echoed throughout the cockpit, "Asuka, be careful out there,"  
"Of course I'm going to be careful," Asuka muttered. "Sheesh, why do you keep having to remind me? It's not like I didn't hear the first time around. Look, just tell me where the Angel is and I'll kill it"  
"There's two of them," she heard Misato's voice.  
"What?" Shinji said. He was positioned on the other end of the city. He and Asuka were supposed to slowly make their way toward where the Angel had landed, and now, there was a second Angel? He didn't recall seeing two Angels descend from the sky.  
"Where is it?" Shinji asked.  
"The second Angel is currently heading north, straight toward the other Angel," Masato's voice could be heard over all three pilots' cockpits. "Be extra cautious. This second Angel...we're getting weird power readings from it."  
"Huh? What do you mean?" Asuka asked.  
"It's a very small Angel," came a reply, "yet its powerlevel is akin to the one we just saw land,"  
"Where the hell did this second Angel come from?" Shinji asked. He was slowly making his way toward where the Angel had landed. Hundreds of questions were running through his mind. His fingers were twitching nervously as he handled the controls.  
"I dunno. It's just...appeared outta nowhere. Just be careful,"

Ranma continued to wander the streets. "God, all these buildings look the same," he muttered. But that didn't really matter much to him. He didn't need to really see the alien to know where it was. He could merely feel its presence.  
He closed his eyes for a moment.  
"What the?" Ranma's eyes immediately opened. He was getting this weird feeling. Aside from sensing that alien, he had sensed three other beings, each almost as strong as the alien he had seen.  
Ranma was getting excited and worried at the same time. "Oh man, what am I gonna do?" he said to himself, looking around. He needed better vantage point. All these building were in the way. Sure, he could destroy them to clear his path, but it was a waste of energy.  
He decided to leap up onto one of the roofs. He leapt up toward one of the buildings and propelled himself off of it, triangle jumping onto a roof of another building.  
"Much better," Ranma said with a smile. He had a clear view from where he was perched. His eyes widened as he caught sight of this weird red robot leaning against a building. "Whoa,"  
Asuka spotted a human...which happened to be Ranma, "W-what the? Why is he up on the roof? Is he some kinda idiot? How come he didn't seek refuge like everyone else? Doesn't he know there're Angels running loose? He's gonna get himself killed,"  
"What? Someone's on the roof?" Misato's voce "Well, get him outta there! Get him to safety!"  
"Why? It's his fault that he's up there in the first place, not mine," Asuka spat. She resented the fact that the man on the roof was too stupid of follow the simple task of taking refuge. She didn't want to play babysitter.  
"Just get him to safety," Misato's voice was stern.  
Asuka swore to herself. She then maneuvered her EVA toward the man, and reach and arm out to take hold of him.  
Ranma peered at the extended arm intently. He then looked up, remembering he had almost killed the Knight Saber's all due to a misunderstanding. Perhaps these giant robots were human driven...like some kind of mech.  
"You human?" Ranma asked after a moment.  
"Of course I'm human you idiot!" Asuka's voice echoed. "Get the hell onto my hand so I can get you to safety!"  
Ranma, realizing that the robot wasn't the enemy, and realizing the human voice, figured it was best to oblige. Afterall, he had no idea what that alien-looking was that he saw land. As he was about to hop off the rooftop and onto the EVA's outstretched hand, a massive explosion struck the back of Asuka's EVA, causing it to topple forward, right into the building Ranma had been on.  
Without even thinking, Ranma reacted on instinct and quickly leapt up into the air, landing on the EVA's back as it settled down on its stomach. As he stood there, he looked up and caught sight of the alien he had seen earlier. It looked like a massive spider and was standing before him.  
"Whoa," he commented, only to find himself a bit off balance as Asuka maneuvered her EVA to get onto its feet. Ranma was forced to lunge off the EVA's back and onto the ground below.  
"You son of a bitch!" Asuka shouted as her EVA got to its feet. Unit-02 gripped its progressive knife with both hands as it made a suicidal attempt at stabbing the giant spider in its body. Unfortunately, Unit-02's attempt was foiled when one of the Angel's legs came crashing into its chest, sending it flying bodily backwards into a nearby building, causing Ranma to run for cover from the falling debris.  
"You'll pay for that!" Asuka spat as she made Unit-02 get back onto its feet. Twice she had been knocked down. Enough was enough.  
From out of nowhere, one of the buildings crumbled and out of it Ranma noticed purple looking robot emerging.  
Unit-01 grabbed the Angel from behind, holding two of its legs in place.  
"I've got it! I've got!" Shinji shouted into his communicator. He couldn't believe he was doing something this reckless, jumping through a building just so he could get the Angel quicker.  
Asuka smiled. Now it was her turn.  
"You're gonna pay for knocking me down twice!" Asuka said. Unit-02 punched the Angel in what seemed like its face several times, continuously barraging it with blows that nearly shook the ground they were on. Ranma nearly cheered aloud. It was actually cool to watch a fight instead of being in one for a change. As he stood a short distance away, definitely close enough to feel the impact of every blow, Ranma's battle aura starting to glow. Perhaps it was because he was getting excited.  
Asuka noticed something through her peripheral vision and turned her EVA to investigate, her view screen immediately showing an image of Ranma and this weird blue light surrounding him.  
"What the hell is tha-" Asuka's words were cut short as she soon found her EVA being flown bodily backwards yet again. It didn't take a genius to realize that that idiot Shinji couldn't hold onto the Angel long enough for Asuka to finish it off. The Angel, after having freed itself, struck her with all its might, hitting Unit-02 directly in its chest.  
Shinji battled for his life as he did his best to keep the Angel's flailing legs from hitting him. It had gotten free and it seemed to want revenge on what Shinji had did. Its attention was turned solely on him, standing on only its hind legs, its other legs in striking position.  
"Jeez!" Shinji said, trying the best to keep the Angel away from him, making his EVA slash at it wildly with the progressive knife.  
Ranma looked toward the red robot. It was slowly getting back up onto its feet.  
Asuka looked at her damage screen. Several red lights were on. That one blow she had taken from the Angel had been devastating. She soon realized her EVA's right arm were no longer functioning, and the power cable had been torn away when she went flying. She could see the timer to power failure rapidly in progress.  
She had to finish this Angel off and quickly before she ran out of power. But she needed a plan.  
"What the hell are you waiting for? Hit it!" Ranma cupped his hands and shouted. He wished he was as large as that big red robot. If he were, he would have finished that spider looking alien a long time ago. "Uppercut its belly! Better yet, stab it in the belly!"  
Asuka looked over toward the glowing blue human, "What?"  
"Use that knife! It's always on its hind legs! Its belly is wide open! Forget about keeping the legs away!" Ranma shouted, urging the red robot pilot on. Couldn't that pilot see it? It was a perfect place to attack.  
"Shut up!" Asuka shouted, "You're not the one fighting! And get the hell outta here if you know what's good for you! You're gonna get yourself killed!" Asuka couldn't believe that man was still there. He should had taken cover already when he had seen the Angel. How stupid could that man be? Why the hell was he still there?  
Asuka turned her attention back onto the Angel, just in time to see the Angel bringing two of its legs down right into Unit-01's chest, causing the entire EVA to fall down to the ground, onto its back, unmoving.  
"Move!" Shinji shouted "Get the hell up! Move!" His EVA refused to respond. "Oh shit!" Ranma said, realizing that the pilot of that purple robot was in deep trouble if he or she didn't do something and fast. The robot was just lying there in the middle of the street, waiting to be skewered by that alien's legs.  
Ranma, not even realizing what he was getting himself into, ran toward the purple robot, running right underneath the belly of the alien. He knew he had to do something. He wanted to at least attempt to rescue the pilot before it was too late. As he ran underneath, Ranma took a quick moment to look up, only to see the red robot desperately trying to keep the alien's legs at bay. If that red robot stepped in the wrong place, Ranma would get squished.  
Back at Nerv headquarter, Misato had a worried look on her face. "Shinji's in trouble! Unit-01 is no longer responding! Eject him!"  
"I can't!" Maya replied "It's not working!"  
As Ranma reached the Shinji's EVA, he jumped onto its chest and said, "Hey, get the hell outta that thing! You're gonna get killed if you stay in there!"  
Shinji looked at his view screen and saw a human standing almost directly in front of the external camera. What the hell was he doing there was what immediately ran through Shinji's mind. Where the hell did he come from?  
"Hey, get outta there!" Ranma shouted.  
"I-I can't!" Shinji shouted. It didn't really stay in his mind that that man wasn't supposed to be there.  
Ranma, hearing the replied, realized he had to somehow rescue the pilot. He turned around and faced the Angel. After a quick glance, "Hell no! I ain't fightin' no alien!" He then turned toward the EVA's chest.  
"Where the hell are you?" Ranma shouted.  
"I-I'm...I'm in spine!" came the reply. It all seemed surreal to Shinji. Here he was, in his EVA, which was unable to move, about to die, and there was someone standing on his EVA's chest talking to him.  
Ranma ran up the chest and stopped at the head. He then squatted low and dug several fingers right into the EVA's steel armor. Once he had a firm purchase, he pulled as hard as he could, pulling one of the steel plates right off. The individual armor plate weighted around a ton and was over a foot in solid metal.  
Ranma gritted his teeth as he tossed the plate to the side, the plate falling to the ground below with a deafening thud. When he looked back down and caught sight of another plate, Ranma realized it would be a lot harder of a task than he had anticipated.  
Realizing that he had no time, Ranma extended a hand forward and said, "Mouko Takabisha!"  
A ki-blast shot right from his extended arm and struck the metal plate, denting it.  
"All right, you wanna play hard ball, huh? Ranma said. He reached a hand forward and concentrated for a change. He glowed blue for a moment and then said, "Mouko Takabisha!"  
"What the hell was that?" Misato commented, looking at the screen. From out of nowhere, she huge spike of energy in the energy scans surrounding the area.  
A massive ki-blast shot from his hand again, nearly blowing the head of Unit-01 right off its shoulders. Ranma was blown backwards several yards due to the close proximity of the impact, but he skillfully twisted in mid-air and landed on his feet. Once on his feet, he ran back up to where he had shot his ki-blast.  
"What the?" Ranma comment as he noticed this pink goo looking substance under the armor plating he had just destroyed. He was about to reach out and actually touch it if weren't for him hearing a deafening crunching noise from behind. He turned around and his eyes widened as he caught sight of the giant spider of an alien clamping two of its legs around the red robot in what looked like a bear hug. The crunching noise was from Unit-02's armor shuddering from the intense pressure being administered.  
All of a sudden, a massive explosion struck the side of the spider. The massive explosion left the alien unscathed. It seemed to actually make it angrier.  
Unit-00, perched by a mountain, had fired one of its rounds. And it seemed to have no effect because of the AT field still surrounding it. It didn't really matter because Rei opened fire, emptying the entire magazine clip full of heavy duty explosive shells right into the side of the Angel.  
Ranma shielded his face as dozens of explosions ensued, the wind from the explosions causing him to actually run away and take cover behind the now helpless purple robot. When the explosions stopped, Ranma realized there must be another robot somewhere around acting as a sniper. But he didn't think about that for long as he looked at the alien and noticed it was totally unaffected.  
"What the hell?" he said, "If something that strong can't hurt it, how the hell do you beat that thing?"  
For several helpless moments, Ranma watched at the alien slowly crush the red robot between its many legs. "What a minute! Perhaps conventional weapons don't hurt it! That means I might be able to help!"  
Ranma's aura flared incredibly as he raised a hand toward the back of the alien.  
"What the hell is that?" Misato said as she looked at her control screen. From out of nowhere, she saw this massive energy source emerge. Ranma shouted, "Mouko Takabisha!" From out of his fingertips came a massive ki-blast striking the alien in its back, causing it to rear up in what seemed like pain, this earth shattering shriek emerging from what seemed like its mouth. It released its hold of the red robot, flailing its legs.  
"What the heck was that?" Ritsuko said, staring at her screen. From out of nowhere, this huge surge of energy struck the Angel. "Where the hell did that surge of energy come from? What's going on? What the hell are all our instruments going ballistic?"  
Ranma smirked "Ah, so you can get hurt,"  
He ran forward and underneath the alien. Once underneath, he shouted, "Mouko Takabisha!" and let loose yet another massive ki-blast, sending it rocketing upward into the belly of the alien. The impact blast as it hit its underside caused the alien to rear up on its hind legs, and then come crashing down on its back, right on top of the purple robot.  
"Oh shit," Ranma said, as he ran backward, getting narrowly missed by a huge flailing leg. He turned his attention toward the red robot and shouted "What are you waiting for? Beat that thing up!"  
Asuka stared at her screen with wide eyes. One second she was in the worse predicament of her life, and then next, she saw all the scanners of her cockpit reading a huge spike of energy, and then she saw the Angel rear up and fall backwards onto its back. And then, to make matters worse, she could hear a man's voice, telling her what to do.  
She looked down and caught sight of the human. Did he just do that? Did he cause that massive spike of energy? She would have to answer questions later. First, she had to kill that damn Angel.  
Just as she was about to maneuver her EVA in for the kill, her cockpit went pitch black.  
It took several moments before Asuka realized what happened "No! I'm outta power!"  
Ranma looked at the red robot. How come it wasn't moving? Is it in some state of shock? He pointed again, "Kill the damn thing! It's gonna get back-"  
He didn't manage to finish his sentence as a one of the alien's massive flailing legs struck Ranma from behind, sending him bodily into a small building, the building collapsing down on him. Brushing off that devastating blow, Ranma quickly hopped back onto his feet and raced out the opening his body had created. He wasn't going to stand idly by while this alien get back onto its feet and then go about destroying the city. Sure, it wasn't his city, nor was this his world, but he would never let something like this happen anywhere.  
Upon reaching the sidewalk, Ranma stopped dead in his tracks to look up and see a blue robot, equal in size as the red and purple one, punching the alien over and over again. The robot seemed to have come out of nowhere and climbed on top of the alien in a mounting position and was proceeding to beat it into oblivion.  
Ranma was about to run up and cheer when he saw the aliens legs go limp, when all of a sudden, the alien's legs reach up and take hold of the blue robot.  
"What the-"  
That was all Ranma managed to say before he saw the alien self destruct, sending out a massive wall death in destruction in every direction like a nuclear bomb, enveloping everything.  
Even Ranma.

Ranma awoke all of a sudden and sat upright. A couple of days had passed since he had been consumed in the blast. Not knowing where he was, he immediately surveyed his surroundings. He realized he was in some kind of infirmary and that virtually half his entire body was covered in bandages.  
He groaned a bit. It hurt to move. But then again, he's been in worse conditions before, like that time when he had jumped in front of Ryoga's Shi Shi Hakodan those many years ago. Now that had hurt.  
He looked up and noticed the room was void of everything except for the bed he was on and a mirror on the wall adjacent to his bed. As he looked at the mirror, he noticed faint shadows behind it, leading him to believe that it was a one way mirror and that he was being watched.  
Ignoring the voyeuristic group, Ranma got up off the bed and removed the bandages one by one. It seems the bandages were restraining his movements more than the injuries he had sustained.  
"That's incredible," Misato commented, watching Ranma intently through the mirror. "That guy looks like he's unhurt. And look at his wounds, they're all healed up. Not even a scar,"  
Gendo sat in the middle of the viewing room, his elbow resting on a table, his chin resting on his hands.  
Ritsuko was up against the glass, staring. Where ever this...specimen...had come from, he was magnificent.  
After all the bandages were removed, Ranma looked down at himself. He looked to be in good condition considering what he had just gone through. Everything seemed to be in working order.  
He hopped out of the bed, the blankets falling to his feet. Luckily for him, he was wearing a pair of boxer. He noticed the door to his right and proceeded toward it, only to trip on a couple of bandages he had precariously thrown to the ground. Feeling embarrassed, he got back up onto his feet and proceeded toward the door. When he tried to turn the knob, he noticed it wouldn't budge. He was locked it.  
Although he wasn't claustrophobic, Ranma didn't like being in closed rooms. He turned toward the mirror, and said, "Excuse me, can you please let me out?"  
"Shit, he knows we're here!" Ritsuko said, a slight measure of panic raising in her voice.  
"Ignore him," Gendo said in a cold voice, "We're here to observe him and how he reacts to the situation he's in,"  
When Ranma didn't receive a reply, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "All right, I said for you to open the door. Now you're gonna hafta pay for a new door,"  
He struck the center of the door with a quick open hand, blowing it right off its hinges. He stopped for a moment as he remembered doing the same thing when he had been captured by Genom and placed in a steel reinforced room. "Shit, he's out!" Misato said. She ran toward the phone near the back of the room only to be stopped when Gendo said, "No. Don't,"  
Stepping out into the hallway, Ranma looked to the left and saw another door. That must be the door to that observation room, he thought. He walked up to the door and opened it, not even bothering to turn the knob, pulling yet another door right off its hinges.  
Misato and Ritsuko gave a yelp in shock as they saw Ranma entered the room. They had no idea exactly what he or it was.  
Ranma looked at Ritsuko and then at Misato, his eyes finally coming to rest on Gendo.  
"What's the big idea, leaving me locked in there?" Ranma said.  
"W-we wanted to observe you," Misato said nervously.  
Ranma seemed a bit confused, "Why the heck would ya wanna observe me? Are you some kinda perverts?"  
"W-what?" Ritsuko said, her eyes widening, "W-we are not. W-we just wanted to observe you and what you would do,"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. He figured that was a good enough explanation as them being perverts and wanting to see him naked or something. He looked at Gendo, "Are you in charge here?"  
Gendo nodded briefly.  
"Well, where am I?"  
"You're in Nerv Headquarters," came the quick reply. Ranma didn't seem all that impressed by whatever this Nerv was as he said, "All right. Can you do me a favor and let me out? I don't wanna be here any longer than I wanna be. I wanna go back to my own world,"  
"W-world?" Misato asked, "W-what world? What are you talking about?"  
Ranma shook his head, "Don't worry about it. It's my problem. Let's just say I accidentally screwed up back on my own world and ended up materializing here,"  
"You mean you're from a different world? Like as in an Angel?" Ritsuko asked.  
"Thank you," Ranma said with a smile, "I've been called many things in my life, but never an angel,"  
"Not that kinda angel. What are you?" Misato questioned, "Where did you come from? Heck, what the hell is your name?"  
Ranma sighed, "Well, my name's Ranma. Ranma Saotome. Jeez, I remember going through the same interrogation like this back on my own world. Anyway, I'm human. Just like you,"  
"What about your powers? Hey, where are you going?" Misato said following behind Ranma.  
Ranma, annoyed with being interrogated, decided it was best to find he was out of this place, whatever it is. He walked down a random hallway.  
"Hold up!" Misato said, running right behind, only to trip over her own two feet and go lunging right into Ranma's back, bringing him down with her. As she looked down at him, she said in a meek voice, "S-  
sorry,"  
Ranma got to his feet as Misato did too. He said, "I'm gonna leave now. I'd appreciate it if you tell me how to get outta this joint,"  
"Hold up, I still have some more questions," Misato said.  
Ranma sighed, "What?"  
"Where did you get all your powers from?"  
"I practiced it. Everyone can do that. I just happened have practiced it until I perfected it, that's all," came the reply, matter-of-factly. "I learned it when I went to China during a decades long training trip"  
Misato opened her mouth to ask more questions before Ranma said, "C'mon, lemme alone. Quit givin' me the first degree. Third degree, whatever the hell you call it. I don't like being interrogated."  
"Where are you going then?"  
"Home hopefully,"  
Ranma looked up. "What the hell are those? They look like upside down buildings. Where the hell's the sun?"  
By now, Ranma was dressed in some clothing. Misato had been following him, and realizing that he was practically naked, she had asked him to wait for a moment while she had someone retrieve some clothes for him.  
Misato, whom had continued to follow Ranma all the way, said, "You're Underground,"  
"Whoa, that's new. I've never been in an underground city before," Ranma commented, "Man, I can't believe the new things I come across everyday."  
"What do you mean by that?"  
"C'mon, quit asking so many questions," Ranma said, "They're so annoying," He looked down at Misato's name badge, "Look, Misato-chan, can you please just, well, lemme alone?"  
"Misato-chan?"  
"Yeah, that's what I said,"  
"First of all, you should be addressing me as Misato-san," Misato corrected, taking a firm stance with Ranma. Even though she had no real idea who he was, she was still his elder.  
Ranma shook his head, "Nope. I don't think so. I'm actually a lot older than you. You should be calling me Ranma-san,"  
"What? Older than me? How old are you?"  
"Argh, quit asking so many questions!" Ranma shouted. He wanted to get away from this girl. Sure, she was very cute, but she asked too many questions. Looking around, Ranma caught sight of a cable line that seemed to run down from that mile high ceiling to the building he had emerged from.  
He leapt up into the air and skillfully landed on it.  
"Holy shit!" Misato said in shock as she saw Ranma leap a dozen or so stories high and onto that cable line. Ranma looked down at Misato and said, "Well, it was nice meeting ya. Ja ne," He then began to run up that steeply declined cable line, running up it as if he was running on solid ground, not once struggling to stay balanced.  
"What the hell's going on here?" Misato said in frustration, "Who the hell is that man?"  
"He's gone," Misato told Gendo as she entered the room.  
"Go after him, the power he possess could help us greatly in our fights against the Angels," Gendo said, not even bothering to look up at her.  
"And how the hell do you suppose I bring him in, huh?" Misato asked, "Put a gun up to his head? I don't think a gun's gonna scare him if he managed to survive that explosion that Angel had caused,"  
"It doesn't matter. Just find a way!"

Ranma took in a breath full of fresh air as he finally set foot on firm ground. He was finally above ground.  
"Wait!" came a voice.  
"Oh no," Ranma muttered to himself. He reluctantly turned around to face Misato, "You again. What do you want? Why are you following me?"  
"I hafta bring you in," she said, huffing and puffing. She couldn't believe her luck in actually finding Ranma. When she had entered the control room and found Ranma's location, she jetted out of there, hoping she would find him still wandering around in that location. Her guess came out correct.  
"Bring me in? For what? Did I do something wrong?" Ranma said with a smirk.  
"Well, no, you didn't do anything wrong," Misato found herself saying, "But we need your help,"  
Ranma's eyes raised a bit, "Help, like in what kinda help?"  
"We need your...well, power," she said, trying her best to come up with the words, "We need to know how you generate so much power,"  
Ranma shook his head, "Hell no. I ain't playing no ginea pig. I went through enough experiments when I was young to last me a life time. No thank you," He began to walk away again, talking to himself, "Hm, well judging from the sun, west should be that way. I guess that's the direction I hafta head in order to get to China,"  
Misato pulled tranquilizer gun from her coat pocket, "Don't move,"  
Ranma turned around again, now a bit angry "Now what?" When he saw the tiny gun, he started laughing, "You've gotta be kiddin' me. That looks like a pea shooter,"  
Misato closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.  
Ranma didn't even flinch as he caught the tranquilizer dart between his index and middle finger, "Do you mind? I told you, I ain't gonna play no ginea pig. Lemme alone,"  
She pulled the trigger again, only to have that dart swatted away skillfully.  
"Misato-chan, first of all, I guarantee that you're not going to hit me with those darts. Second, I'm not gonna play ginea pig," he said, exasperated "But I have to bring you in," she said.  
"Goddamnit it! I've been in this world for, what, a day, and I'm already in a heap of shit!" Ranma shouted, shooting a ki-blast into the sky for emphasis, "Lemme alone. I have other things to worry about, like in getting back to my own world. I'm not here in your world because I want to, y'know. I have friends in my homeworld waiting from me to come back,"  
Misato pulled the trigger again but nothing came out. She was out of darts.  
Ranma smirked, "Ha. You're outta bullets. Now go away. Shoo,"  
"I ain't leaving!"  
"Misato-san, what's going on?" came a voice, Shinji's voice.  
Misato turned her attention away from Ranma.  
Shinji, Rei, and Asuka were together, staring at Misato and Ranma. They had been on their way home from school. They would have done some testing, but all the EVA's were currently being repaired after that fierce battle.  
"What's going on here?" Asuka asked. She looked at Ranma and her eyes immediately dawn recognition, "You!"  
Ranma pointed toward himself, "Me? What about me?"  
"You're the idiot I saw on that rooftop the other day!" she spat, "If it weren't for you, I woulda killed that Angel in no time,"  
"Huh? Wait a minute, you mean you were the one piloting that big red robot?" Ranma asked.  
"Of course I was, you idiot! And for your information, it's not a robot, it's an EVA," she corrected him.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Looked like a robot to me. Anyway," he ignored Asuka and turned toward Misato, "What do I hafta do to get you to leave me-"  
"Hey, don't ignore me like that!" Asuka said, her brows creasing.  
Ranma sighed, "What? What do you want?"  
"You heard what I said," Asuka replied, "Don't ignore me like that,"  
Annoyed that this little red haired girl could be so pretentious, Ranma ignored her on purpose and turned back toward Misato, "As I said before, I'm not gonna play a ginea-"  
"Hey, I said don't ignore me!"  
Ranma sighed, "Forget it,"  
He ignored everyone and began walking away.  
"What the hell's his problem?" Asuka asked, jerking a thumb at Ranma as he walked away.  
"It's most likely you," Rei said.  
"And what makes you think that, Wonder Girl?" Asuka quickly said. "Ranma! Wait up!" Misato called up, running after Ranma. She would have to talk to Asuka later about that mouth of hers. Ranma ignored her and continued to walk away.  
All of a sudden, a loud siren could be heard. Ranma stopped for a moment, curious as to what that siren represented. He looked toward the side and noticed the building beginning to sink into the ground.  
"Oh shit! Another Angel? Already?" Misato said, her voice shaky. She quickly ran to a nearby payphone and dialed for Nerv Headquarters.  
Ranma, curiosity getting the better of him, followed Misato for a change, hoping to eavesdrop on the conversation.  
"Are you absolutely sure?" Misato said, a finger plugging her free ear so she block out the sirens, "Where is it expected to land? How much time do we have?"  
After a few moments, Misato hung up. She turned toward the three children nearby, "We've got another incoming Angel!"  
"Already?" Asuka said, shock in her voice. She didn't even have time to fully recover from last battle. She still had bruises from when she had been thrown around in that cockpit of hers, "But it's only been a couple of days. The EVA's aren't even fully repaired yet!"  
Misato said, "I know. But we have no time left. That Angel's gonna land! We have to prepare! Get down to headquarters and suit up! I'll be there in a minute!"  
The children all nodded before they ran down the street toward one of the Nerv buildings that led them down underground, leaving behind Ranma and Misato.  
"Sounds like something bad's gonna happen," Ranma continued to look at Misato curiously. "Yeah, you've got that right," she responded, "You remember that thing you were fighting not too long ago? Well, another one like it is gonna land in a short while! And we're not fully prepared to fight it! Our EVA...those robots you saw fighting them, they're not fully repaired. Heck, they're in horrible shape after that explosion."  
Ranma found his conscience getting the better of him, "Um, do you want me to help?"  
"Yeah, that's why I wanted to bring you in!" she shot out, "Whatever those things you threw, they hurt the Angel pretty badly. It seemed to break through the AT fields like there was nothing there. If we know how you harness that power you have, we would have an advantage over those damn Angels!"  
"Um, what will happen if you can't stop those things, those...Angels?"  
"What the hell do you think?" she answered, "Mankind will be wiped off the face of this earth. Those three...robots we have are our only defense against those things. Once they get destroyed, we're helpless,"  
"Man, that's a lot of pressure resting on your shoulders," Ranma commented. "Especially on that redhaired girl if she's the pilot,"  
"That group of three kids, they're the pilots! They pilot the EVAs, those robots you saw," she said, "They're the ones who go into combat against those things,"  
"What? B-but they're only kids!"  
"I know, but we have no choice," Misato said, "They're the one those EVA's will synchronize with. They can control those EVA's better than anyone else. Those EVA's won't respond to just anyone piloting them. They only respond to certain people, children that had been born nine months after the Second Impact,"  
"Second Impact? Jeez, that sound like something bad,"  
"Look, I can't stay here and explain. I have to get back to headquarters and fast. I have to help those children prepare," she said, "Now that you know of our predicament, are you coming with me back to headquarters?"  
"What for? I'm useless there,"  
"We need as much help as we can get!" Misato pleaded, "How the hell can you be so goddamn selfish? Dontcha get it? Everyone will die if those children fail! If we knew how to harness your...powers...at least we stand a much better chance!"  
"Go on and help those children prepare. I'll stay here. I'll keep the thing distracted,"  
"What? Angels are huge! You saw how big that other one was! Angels don't come any smaller than that!" she shouted above the sirens, "Damn, I really have to go! Look, can you make a promise that you will help us out after all of this? Please, I'm begging you,"  
Ranma shook his head. "No, I'm not gonna play ginea pig. But I can help you out in other ways perhaps,"  
Misato reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a tiny card that had her address and phone number on it, and then turned around and ran down the street, but not before saying, "That's my apartment address. After all of this, I'll be there later. Can you please meet me there?"  
"Um, I guess so. I hope I could find it," he said, "But, remember, I'll only be there to help, not play ginea pig,"  
"Fine,"

Ranma sat on the rooftop.  
"Jeez, what the hell am I gettin' myself into? All I wanna do is go to China to find that blasted nanban mirror so I can go back home, and here I am, sitting on a rooftop, waiting for an alien, what was it called, an Angel, to land," he said to himself, "When I was young, I fought ghosts, demons, and ogres. When I got older, I fought boomers and superboomers. And now, I'm on a different world, fighting aliens from a different world also. Jeez, when the hell can I ever get some time to myself?"  
Meanwhile, back at Nerv Headquarters, everyone was preparing for battle.  
Shinji, looked at his display screen within Unit-01, "Everything's fine. I'm ready for launch," Jeez, there's still so many things that haven't been repaired yet, he though to himself. God, how the hell am I supposed to fight with one arm?  
Asuka's voice entered the cockpit, "Hey, Shinji, you better not get in my way. I plan on ripping this Angel apart. If you see that guy out there again, you go and play babysitter,"  
"Speaking of which," Shinji said, "Where did that guy come from? Didn't you notice that he was actually helping us out?"  
Misato's voice entered the cockpit, "That's enough. We'll worry about that later. Get ready for launch,"  
Maya said, "Synchronization ratio within normal parameters. Activating launch sequence,"  
"God, I hope this isn't a mistake," Ritsuko commented, "I mean, we're sending into battle three damaged EVA's. They had trouble stopping an Angel with three fully functioning EVA's and they all got damaged. How are they going be able to stop this one?"  
"It doesn't matter. We have to send them in anyway," Gendo said coldly, "All of humanity depends on them succeeding. They must succeed, no matter how much they're at a disadvantage," He looked at the screen, saying nothing else.  
Misato looked at the screen. The Angel had finally landed near the outskirts of Tokyo 3 and was slowly making its way toward the city.  
"Guys, I want you to listen to me carefully," Misato said into the communicator, "We have someone on our side. He's that man you saw earlier, he's currently standing on top of one of the weapons depot buildings. Whatever you do, don't let him get killed. Y'hear? He's very very important to us," She almost hated saying that. It was as if she was treating Ranma as some kind of object, not some human being.

Ranma looked at the Angel in the far off distance. The Angel was at least five miles away.  
"Jeez, what the hell is that?" he said, "That damn thing looks like a jellyfish with a big fat eye in the middle. How the hell does it remain hovering like that." He noticed the angel was hovering several miles high above the ground.  
All of a sudden, the ground began to shake, "Whoa,"  
After the shaking stopped, Ranma noticed three EVA's emerged from buildings within the city. He watched as all three quickly ran down the street, heading directly toward the incoming Angel.  
"Hm, I guess I better do that same also," Ranma said to himself as he leapt forward onto another rooftop, continuing to do so as he slowly made his way toward the Angel.  
"We have visual on Ranma," Maya said, "H-he's...what? He's jumping from rooftop to rooftop, heading straight toward the Angel,"  
Misato and Ritsuko looked at the screen. Their eyes widened. "What the hell is he?" Ritsuko said, "How the hell is he doing that? Are you sure thing guy's human? From the way I see it, he's probably an Angel that happens to look human.  
"Don't say something like that," Misato retorted.  
"Damn, it's gonna take me forever to get there," Ranma said to himself, already breathing heavily. He took a moment to stop for a breather. As he took a short break he realized there was an easier way to get to where he was headed, take a ride on one of those EVA's. He looked around and saw one of the EVA's running through the street nearby.  
Without caring if he should or not, Ranma leapt off the building and down onto the EVA's shoulders. Shinji looked at his screen. Something had just landed on him. What the hell was it?  
"Relax, Shinji, that's the guy I mentioned earlier," he heard Misato's voice, "He's hitching a ride on Unit-01's left shoulder."  
Ranma looked over toward the head of the EVA he was on, "Jeez, look at the teeth on those things,"  
"Hello, you there?" Ranma heard a voice say.  
"Huh? Where are you?" Shinji said, "I'm inside. I'm talking to you through an external Speaker,"  
"Cool," Ranma commented, "Which one are you? I saw three kids,"  
"I'm the young boy," Shinji replied, "My name's Shinji Ikari,"  
"Ranma Saotome. Nice to meetcha,"  
"Are you going to help us out?" Shinji asked, still maneuvering Unit-01 through the winding streets. After a short while, he had to unplug his power cord and replug it with a new one from one of the buildings.  
"What the hell's that?" Ranma asked as he saw Shinji changing power cords.  
"Um, that's our power supply. If it gets disconnected, we will only have five minutes of power before total power failure," Shinji answered.  
"Shinji, concentrate on your objective," he heard Misato say, "You don't need to tell him everything there is about those EVA's. We still don't know who he exactly is. All we know is that he's on our side, but there's no need to disclose all our information."  
"Sorry, Misato-san,"  
Ranma's eyes widened as he saw the Angel up close, "There it is," He was only a mile or so away. "Look, I'm gonna hop off here. I don't want to get blown up again like last time. That kinda hurt, y'know. Anyway, I'll try and help out from over here."  
"All right," came Shinji's voice. The EVA knelt down low to the ground, allowing for Ranma to leap off much easier and onto one of the rooftops, "Take care,"  
Ranma smiled, "For such a young kid, he sure is polite,"  
He looked up at the Angel as Unit-01 ran down the street toward it. He looked toward the side and saw the other two EVA not a far ways off, also running down the street to intercept the Angel. As he stood there, he could feel his heart racing, knowing that the inevitable was going to happen, that a major battle was going to break loose in no time, and that he had a front row seat.  
"Ranma!"  
"Huh?"  
"Ranma, it's me, Misato," came her voice, "I talking to you through the external speakers throughout the entire city,"  
"Cool, what do you want?"  
"Can you use that fireball thing you used earlier on that Angel in front of you?" she said. Ranma thought about it for a moment and then said, "All right,"  
"Can you shoot it in one minute? I'm gonna tell the others of the plan,"  
"All right," He raised a hand waited for a minute and then said "Mouko Takabisha! Mouko Takabisha!"  
Two ki-blast shot from his hands, both of them rocketing straight toward the Angel that happened to be in their path. As the blasts whizzed by between the buildings, the buildings shuddered from the shear velocity of the blast as the flew right by them. When both blasts struck the Angel, it let out a deafening roar as if it were in pain. For a brief moment, a huge wave of red surrounded the Angel before it shattered.  
"Holy shit! He just destroyed that Angel's AT field!" Misato said in shock as she noticed this barrier surrounding the Angel disappearing all of a sudden.  
Ritsuko looked at the screen. This couldn't be right. If this was true, the Angel was now defenseless. The EVA's would be able to destroy it in no time, even if they were damaged.  
"What the hell was that?" Asuka asked, looking at her viewscreen. She had been maneuvering her EVA toward the enemy when all of a sudden it had been consumed in a ball of energy. She was forced to shield her eyes from the intensity of the blast.  
"Attack it! It's defenseless!" All three EVA pilots heard Misato's voice, "Its AT field is down! Grab one of the weapons and pick it off from a distance!"  
Shinji was the first one to respond. He immediately ran up to one of the weapons buildings and grabbed a heavy grenade launcher. Using Unit-  
01's useful arm, Shinji brought the launcher up and aimed it high into the sky toward the Angel and opened fire, several shots missing at first, but eventually hitting its mark.  
The Angel was helpless as it was barraged with intense firepower. It was soon barraged with even more intense firepower as Unit-00 and Unit-  
02 grabbed their weapons and also opened fire. It reared up in pain as chunks of its body was blown clear off, green blood splattering everywhere.  
After a short while, the Angel fell toward the ground.  
"Watch it, it's gonna self-destruct if you get too close," Misato warned them.  
With its last ounce of strength left, the Angel self-destructed, consuming everything that happened to be nearby just as it crashed into the ground.  
Ranma, as he caught sight of the walls of flames coming straight toward him. "Oh man, not again!"  
Ranma stood outside Misato's apartment. He looked at the card and then up at the number on the apartment door. Several hours had passed since the destruction of that Angel. He hadn't stayed behind to be questioned and probed because of his portrayal in the Angel's destruction. Although he had been consumed in the blast when the Angel self destructed, he had been far away not to become seriously hurt.  
"Well, I guess this is it," he said and then knocked. After several moments, he knocked again.  
The door opened after he knocked a third time to reveal Misato.  
"R-Ranma!" she said, very surprised, "Where the hell have you been? I've been worried sick about you! No one found you after that explosion. We all thought the worst had happened, that you had been killed in the blast,"  
Ranma shook his head, "Nah. As you can tell, I survived. What makes you think I wouldn't be able to survive? I survived the last blast, so why wouldn't I be able to survive this one, ne? Well, anyway, I'm here like I said,"  
"Um, please, come in,"  
Ranma entered the apartment. His brows raised a bit as he noticed what a mess the place was. There were beer cans, take-out food boxes, and miscellaneous things strewn about. It didn't really bother him all that much because it reminded him of his own room when he had been young.  
"The place sure is...nice," he commented.  
"Yeah, yeah. I know. It's a mess," she said wryly, "Have a seat. Do you want anything to drink? Sake? A beer?"  
"No thank you, I don't drink," he said.  
"You're probably not underage because you had mentioned that you're actually older than me so I assume you just don't like alcohol,"  
"Yeah, let's say I'm well over sixty," he answered, "Anyway, I'm here, like I said. I'm here to help out, but that's it,"  
"Y-you're o-over s-sixty? Then how come you look so young?"  
Ranma nodded, "Yes, I'm over sixty. I look young because, well, I used to be cursed, but that's aside from the point. Anyway, I'm here to help out."  
"Cursed?"  
Ranma sighed, "Hold up. Time out. This is starting to sound like another interrogation again. Back onto the subject, I'm here to offer some help,"  
"Um, yes, help," Misato said, "Um, your powers, is there any way you can show us, Nerv, how to do it?"  
"Well, it's pretty easy. Everyone has the ability to do that," Ranma said matter-of-factly, "You know what ki is? It's a form of inner energy. Everyone and everything possess it. The act of throwing one of those fireballs as you call it, is simply harnessing all that ki into a concentrated point and throwing it. That's all,"  
"All right, if everyone can do it, how come no one here knows how to do it? Also, how do you manage to get something like that so powerful?" she asked, "I mean, from what I saw, the energy is incredibly high. It's even stronger than those AT fields surrounding those Angels,"  
"AT fields?"  
"That stands for Absolute Terror fields," Misato said, "It's like an impenetrable force field that requires obscene amounts of energy to break through. And you...you destroyed that thing with a single blast. The amount of energy required to break through that field is in the terrawatts, which is enough to power half this entire country,"  
"Well, perhaps those AT fields can't withstand ki blasts," Ranma said, "I mean, ki is a form of internal energy. And all those things you shoot are, well, external energies,"  
At that moment, Shinji and Asuka came home.  
"Misato-san, we're home," Shinji called out. Asuka entered the livingroom, "God, what a day! I need a rest! Why the hell did we hafta stay behind and-" Her eyes widened as she saw Ranma, "You again?"  
Ranma looked at Asuka, "Hey, I know you. You're that girl I saw earlier,"  
"Yeah, and you're that jerk that was stupid enough to be running the streets during that Angel attack!" she said, "That was pretty stupid of you,"  
Ranma turned toward Misato, "Is she always like this?"  
"Hello, Ranma," Shinji said politely.  
"Oh, hello, Shinji," Ranma responded, nodding in acknowledgement.  
"Y-you know each other?" Asuka asked, looking at Ranma and then at Shinji.  
"Um, Asuka, he was the one that destroyed that AT field," Shinji said softly.  
Asuka looked at Ranma and then back at Shinji "He what? That can't be! How can someone as stupid as him do something like that?"  
Ranma, a bit annoyed with this fiery-haired girl, "Jeez, what's wrong with you? Do you have some kinda chip on your shoulder?"  
"What do you mean by that?" Asuka said, looking at Ranma, her eyes creasing in contempt.  
"Is it that time of the month or something?" he asked. It didn't at all cross his mind that women never wanted to be asked something like that if they ever acted annoyed or angry at something or someone. It was one of the most taboo questions to ask a woman, and Ranma had just asked.  
"What?" Asuka exploded, "How dare you say something like that!"  
Misato burst out laughing. Oh god, that was just too funny. Shinji also started laughing, more like snickering.  
"That's not funny!" Asuka said aloud toward Misato and Shinji. She then turned her attention back on Ranma, who was watching her with a bemused expression.  
"What's your name, little girl?" he asked, a smirk.  
"I don't need to tell you!" she said, "And my name's not 'little girl'!"  
"All right, if you don't tell me your name, I'll keep referring to you as little girl," he then said, still smirking. Asuka looked at Misato, "Why the hell is he here?  
"I came here to ask you out," Ranma said with a smirk, jokingly.  
"What?" Asuka and Shinji said in unison.  
"Yeah, I think you're cute, little girl, that I came here to ask Misato if I could take you out on a date," he said, giving Misato a wink. Here he was, teasing a girl he didn't know. On any other day, he wouldn't have done that, but he disliked the way she looked at him like he was some kind of bug that should be squashed.  
Asuka blushed a bit, only a little bit. Misato burst out laughing.  
Ranma then turned toward Misato, ignoring Asuka, "Anyway, back onto the subject, I guess I could help you out. I could simply teach you how to do something like throwing a ki-blast,"  
"And what makes you think I wanna go out with a jerk like you?" Asuka tried to put up a defense. She would not lose a verbal argument with this man, whoever he was.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "All right. Then forget I asked. Anyway, Misato, about-"  
Asuka opened her mouth to say something yet again, "Well, what makes you think I would wanna go out with a jerk like you?"  
Ranma, more annoyed with her constantly pestering him, turned toward her, and said "Go away,"  
"I live here,"  
"Too bad," Ranma said, "I feel sorry for Misato then,"  
"What? How d-dare you s-say something like that! You don't even know who I am!"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, and then turned toward Shinji, "Yo, is she always like this? Someone oughta spank her,"  
Misato burst out laughing again. Shinji chuckled.  
"Hey, quit laughing!" Asuka said in frustration.  
Changing the subject, Ranma continued to barrage Asuka "I betcha you touch yourself,"  
"What?" Asuka shouted, blushing beet red. "I-I d-do not!"  
Ranma wondered how much longer he would have to continue teasing this little girl before she would simply be quiet. All he wanted her to do was be quiet. That was it. After a short while, he turned toward Misato, "Anyway-"  
"I d-don't do such a thing!" Asuka said.  
"Argh!" Ranma said in frustration. He walked over the Asuka and touched her chest.  
"Eeeeek!" Asuka screamed as she saw Ranma's hand pressing up against her breasts, "You pervert!" She stopped screaming when Ranma touched one of her pressure points. She fell forward into Ranma's arms unconscious. He threw her over his shoulder, "Where's her room?"  
Misato, staring, pointed toward Asuka's bedroom door. Ranma carried Asuka into her bedroom and emerged a second later, "I shoulda done that a long time ago. She keeps going on and on and on. Jeez,"  
"W-what did you just do?" Misato asked.  
"I pressed one of her pressure points," Ranma replied, "It knocks her out for a few hours. Very useful for people who have trouble sleeping," He inched his face close to Misato's, "And take advantage of some one," When Misato blushed, he added, "Hey, don't get the wrong idea, Misato-  
chan. I was just joking around. I'm old enough to be yer father,"  
Shinji, who watched all of this, asked, "Misato's father? B-but you look like you're only, what, twenty,"  
Ranma nodded, "Yeah, I may look twenty, but I'm definitely not. I'm very old. Actually, I have no real idea exactly how old I am, but I'm well into my sixties,"  
"Well, you look very, um, young for a sixty year old," Misato commented.  
"Is that some kinda come on, Misato-chan?" Ranma said with a smirk. He was in the teasing mood after having teased Asuka so much.  
Misato's brows creased, but she said in a somewhat jokingly matter, "I don't think I've ever met someone as crass and arrogant as you, Ranma,"  
Ranma smiled a bit, but then took on a serious face, "Now, back to the subject about ki-blasts,"  
"Ki-blasts?" Shinji asked, "What's that?"  
"Well, what Misato and I were talking about was my ability to shoot projectiles from my hands," he answered, "and from what I'm expecting, it seems like I'll be teaching you how to do that,"  
"Y-you're g-going to teach us to do stuff like that?" Shinji said, his voice shaky, "I-I don't think I could do something like that,"  
Ranma shook his head, "Don't think that way. Everyone and anyone can do it. It's just harnessing all your ki that's a bit tricky. Here, follow me, I'll show you,"  
He headed out the front door, Misato and Shinji following him. Once outside, Ranma leaned over the balcony, and pointed toward the sky at a single white cloud tainting an otherwise perfect night sky.  
"You see the cloud over there, Shinji? Stick out one of your hands, palms open, and aim the palm toward it," Ranma said in a rather soft voice. He actually felt rather happy to be showing someone something he knew. This reminded him of the time he had taught Sylia how to manipulate ki.  
Shinji did as Ranma told him, gingerly raising an hand, palm open.  
Ranma placed a hand on the young boy's shoulder and almost immediately, an aura formed around the two people.  
Misato, shocked at the sudden power that emanated from both Ranma and Shinji, took a step backwards, tripping and falling down on her backside, yet still staring at the two.  
Shinji was starting to panic. He was feeling this intense feeling of energy flowing through his entire body.  
He said, "W-what's t-this feeling I-I'm getting? It feels like I'm gonna explode,"  
"I know. Doesn't that feel cool?" Ranma chuckled a bit, but stopped when he realized that Shinji would probably be in this near state of hysteria, not knowing what he was supposed to do while this intense power built up within him. Ranma immediately said in a soft and soothing voice, "There's no need to worry. I'm right here. You're not going to get hurt."  
"I-it feels like I c-can't get hurt," Shinji commented, his hand a bit shaky as it was still extended from his body.  
"That's the ki," Ranma said softly, "Basically, it's an intense energy surrounding you, like a form of, I guess, armor. Anyway, it's basically pure energy and you can manipulate it to suit your needs. Right now, you're gonna use it as an ki-blast,"  
"W-what d-do you want me t-to do?" Shinji asked meekly. He was getting more and more nervous. He could feel the energy gathering within him growing exponentially. "Shoot it toward that cloud when you feel like it," "H-how?"  
Ranma smiled, "Well, it's hard to explain it. Right now, you feel more and more power flowing through you, ne? Well, it's building up because you're using your will to hold it in. To release all that power, simply think of releasing it. Picture a ki-blast shooting from your fingertips, and, guess what, it will..."  
Shinji nodded. A second later, a massive ki-blast erupted from Shinji's hands, the ball of energy shooting up at its target, ripping right through it and continuing upwards toward the dark sky above, disappearing as it ascended toward the heavens.  
The kickback of shooting the ki-blast sent Shinji propelling backwards where he landed on a shocked Misato.  
"Oh my god!" Shinji said, his pupils wide, his mouth agape, as he looked up at the sky and where the cloud used to be.  
Ranma smiled weakly, "Sorry bout that, I shoulda told ya that throwing one of those things gives quick a kickback," He walked over to Shinji and picked him up, doing the same for Misato.  
"H-how d-did Shinji do that?" Misato asked in a shaky voice. "That thing was so powerful I felt the heat from it as it shot from his hands!"  
Ranma turned toward Misato, "Well, since Shinji doesn't exactly know how to summon ki, I simply let my own ki flow right into him. That's why I had a hand on his shoulders. Anyway, in order for him to call forth ki, without my help, you hafta learn to breath and concentrate properly. That's all,"  
"T-that's i-incredible!" Shinji commented, looking at his hand. He couldn't believe so much power had gone through those slender fingertips of his.  
Ranma smirked, "And you know what else is funny?"  
"What?"  
"I'm gonna punch ya in the gut," Ranma crouched low and cocked an arm back, paused for a short moment for Shinji to realize what Ranma was about to do, and then brought his fist forward and struck Shinji right in the stomach in a perfectly executed uppercut.  
Shinji's eyes opened wide as he realized a fist was implanted in his gut, and that his feet were no longer touching the floor. Ranma smiled and then lowered his arm, allowing Shinji's feet to touch the ground. When Shinji looked at Ranma, this dumbfounded look in his eyes, Ranma said, "Guess what? I just punched you in the gut hard enough to knock the wind outta ya..."  
"W-w-why d-did you just do t-that?"  
Ranma smirked, "Did it hurt?"  
Shinji looked down at his stomach. He noticed his shirt was slightly crumpled. He also noticed he was breathing perfectly fine and that he hadn't been winded. He looked up at Ranma, unable to discern what had just happened.  
"I just punched you," Ranma said.  
"B-but I-it didn't hurt,"  
Ranma nodded, "Yep, that's because you were expecting it. Ki protects you. It just so happened that after you shot off that ki-blast, you still had some build up of ki within you. I sensed it,"  
"Huh?" was what all Misato could say. Ranma sighed a bit and said, "What I just demonstrated were two ways you could use ki. Because of ki, you shot that projectile. And also, because of ki, you were protected from that punch I gave ya. That's why I told you I was gonna punch you. I made you expect it, thus, subconsciously, you manipulated your ki to absorb the blow instead of your body"  
"But I felt you hit me...even though it didn't hurt," Shinji said.  
"Of course you felt it. It's just that when my fist actually touch your body, the ki absorbed all the impact." Ranma responded, "Think of it as some kinda, well, force field. Now, if you weren't expecting that blow, you would have been winded. Man, I remember getting hit in the back with a missile and I had been totally unexpecting it. Jeez, that hurt, but that's besides the point,"  
"Oh man, this is too much," Misato said. Her head was starting to hurt. Just a few seconds ago, she saw Shinji...yes, Shinji, throw a ki-  
blast powerful enough for her to feel the heat, and then, she saw him absorb a blow that would have probably damaged internal organs. "God, I'm getting a headache just trying to comprehend what I just saw," she commented.  
Ranma chuckled, and a very sensual chuckle Misato noticed, as he said, "I know, it's very...um...frightening at first, but it's always been there. It's just that, well, I guess no one really knows how to harness all that energy. Wait a minute, I know. You know what yoga is?"  
Misato and Shinji both nodded.  
"That's a form of ki manipulation," Ranma said, "In yoga, you learn to breath and concentrate correctly. The only difference is that you're taught to use your ki as a form of self improvement,"  
"I still don't get it. How do you do that?" Shinji said, "H-how long will it take to learn something like that?"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "I dunno. It depends on how quickly you can pick things up and understand 'em. I guess it would probably take, what, decades to learn how to effectively harness ki. Me, I learned 'em in a few days cause, well, I had to learn it," He stopped from a moment and scratched his head. He remembered once saying this to some other people when they, too, had asked the same kind of questions.  
Ranma's stomach grumbled. All of a sudden, he seemed to forget where he was or what he was talking about.  
"God, I'm starving," Ranma commented, rubbing his stomach. He began to walk off down the walkway, "Well, I'm off,"  
"Huh?" Misato said, realizing Ranma was walking away, "W-where are you going?"  
Ranma turned around, "I gotta go get some food, I'm starving,"  
"Um, why not have dinner with us?" she quickly said.  
"Nah. No offense, but I have this sneaky assumption you don't really know how to cook," Ranma commented.  
Misato blushed. After a short while, she felt this anger flow through her, "W-what makes you think I can't cook, huh?"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, this slight mischievious grin on his lips as he said, "Well, they why do I see so many take out stuff in yer house?"  
Shinji chuckled, unable to control himself. Busted. Misato blushed, "Um, well, I've been busy. I have work, y'know. I'm a very busy person," That was the best defense she could come up with while on the spot. It sounded plausible.  
"All right, if you say so," Ranma said with a smile.  
There was a brief pause. Misato knew Ranma was a very perceptive person, but she had no idea he was that perceptive.  
"Okay, fine. I can't cook. You happy?" she said, annoyed that Ranma's assumption was correct.  
"Well, see ya around," he said, continuing down the walkway toward the stairs.  
"Hold up, aren't you gonna show us more to this ki stuff?" she asked, following closely behind him.  
Ranma stopped and turned to face her, only to realize that Misato didn't manage to stop in time as she bumped right into him, bringing herself down on top of him. She quickly got up, embarrassed beyond belief. Ranma had landed on his backside and his arms was propping himself up, his legs spread, Misato sitting between them. It provided quite a licentious scene.  
"S-sorry about that," she got back up, Ranma doing the same.  
"Look if you wanna come along that badly with me, I don't mind," Ranma said.  
"W-what makes you think I want to come along?" she replied defensively, "Um, I just wanted to know if I, um, we could see you again. We would like to learn more about this ki stuff. It would help out greatly against those Angels,"  
Ranma's eyes creased a bit. He then shrugged his shoulders, "I'll stop by around the same time,"  
"Um, where are you going? Where are you going to stay?" Misato asked curiously. She almost didn't want him to leave.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "I have no idea where I'm going. Nor where I'm staying,"  
"Um, how about, um, staying at my place. I mean, I can make room for you," she offered.  
"Huh?" Ranma said, this odd look in his eyes. He placed his hands on her shoulders, "Why on Earth would you offer me to stay at your place? You don't even know me that well. Besides, I don't think that little girl would appreciate it."  
"Asuka,"  
"Huh?"  
"Her name is Asuka. Shoryuu Asuka Langley," Misato said.  
"All right. I don't think Asuka would appreciate it. I'm pretty sure she hates my guts," he smirked, "She'll probably kill me in my sleep if she had the chance," "She's all right once you get to know her," Misato said, "Anyway, as a way of saying thanks, you're welcome to stop by whenever you like. Heck, there's even food in the fridge, in case you're hungry. I guess I'll see you tomorrow, at around the same time?"  
Ranma nodded.  
"All right. I'll see you around. Maybe we might bump into each other," she said, smiling warmly before she turned around and headed for her apartment.  
Ranma stood there, on the walkway, alone, for several moments. He chuckled a bit.  
"Man, Misato sure reminds me of Akane..."

Ritsuko noticed someone familiar on her way home from a grueling day at Nerv Headquarters. She was jealous of Misato because she had gone home many many hours ago. While Misato had gone home close to five, Ritsuko had stay behind, not finishing until well past eleven.  
She was stopped at a red light, waiting for it to change, when she saw Ranma as he crossed the street. Unfortunately, he didn't quite make it as it turned green on him. Still, he took his time, not even bothered by the fact that several cars were honking at him, several drivers even sticking there heads out the window to curse at him.  
"Hold yer horses," Ranma shouted back. He was really hungry, having wandered the street for several hours already, and was starting to get irritated at not having found a job.  
"Get the fuck outta the road!" a pissed of motorist shouted, flipping Ranma a gesture quite frequently used in a city called New York. He was a young man, showing off to his three friends whom happened to be in the car with him.  
Ranma, very annoyed at how rude people were nowadays, walked over to the motorist. Ritsuko watch all of this from the safety of her car, which happened to be located directly behind the peeved off motorist. Her eyes widened as she saw him grip the front of the car and pick it up, all four wheels leaving the ground. As he held the car, he walked over toward the red light, where everyone else was still stopped, watching in awe, and placed the car back down, perpendicular to the sidewalk.  
Ranma smiled a bit, and then crossed the street to the other side.  
Ritsuko turned her attention from Ranma and onto the car. She realized Ranma had put the car down so that it was stuck in the middle of the street, unable to move forward or back up to right itself due to the oncoming traffic one side and that sidewalk on the other. After a short while, all the motorists realizing it was a green light, also realized they were all being blocked by that man's car and soon, everyone started honking their horn, swearing at him.  
After a few minutes passed, the light having turned green and then red several times, the man finally righted himself, moving forward and backwards in tiny amounts. As the traffic finally managed to pick up, Ritsuko, compelled and shocked at seeing Ranma, pulled her car to the side and got out of her car. She ran down the sidewalk, catching up with Ranma after a short moment.  
"Ranma," she called out to him, stopping by his side, her breathing a bit heavy.  
Ranma looked at Ritsuko, "Eh? Do I know you? Have we met before?" He looked at her carefully, and after a moment, his eyes lit in recognition, "Oh, I know you. I saw you in that tiny room with Misato, ne?"  
Ritsuko nodded. This was the first time she had actually met him and talked. She had observed him through the one way mirror and had talked to him during that Angel attack via a communications line, but they had never truly met face to face.  
"I'm Ranma,"  
"Yes. I know that. I'm Akagi Ritsuko,"  
"How're ya doin'?" he said with a warm smile, "Whatcha doing around here?"  
Ritsuko's heart skipped a beat. She had never realized how handsome Ranma was. God, he was gorgeous, "I-I'm fine. I-I was on my way home from work,"  
Ranma seemed to be an easy person to talk to. He said, "You were at work until now? That's quite a bit of hours. You must be tired. Do you live around here?"  
She nodded, "Yeah, I've been at work for over fourteen hours. And I'm beat. And yes, I live very close. My home is just around the corner,"  
Ranma looked around, "Do ya walk home from work? You want me to walk you home?"  
"Um, er, I guess you could walk me home. I-I don't mind," she said. Jeez, she thought, what the hell am I doing? I don't even know this guy! Misato is the type of person to do this, not me! "Um, now that I think about it. There's no real need to. I mean, I live right around the corner."  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "All right," And then he walked off.  
Ritsuko felt a bit sad that Ranma didn't even persist in walking her home.  
Asuka was looking out the window of her classroom during lunch break and caught sight of a very familiar and unwanted sight.  
"What the hell is he doing here?" she gasped, noticing Ranma walking through the courtyard.  
Ranma looked around as he stood in the courtyard. He couldn't help but notice that every Japanese courtyard looked the same, and that every school looked the same. Luckily for him, there was only one school in the area. He closed his eyes and pictured Kuno rushing him, his bokken raised, ready to strike. God, how he missed the days. He would even let Kuno hit him several times, just for the fun of it. Of course, those attacks wouldn't hurt since Ranma had gotten much much stronger over the many years, but it was fun to imagine the look on Kuno's face as he realize he couldn't hurt Ranma.  
"God, what I would do to see that happen," Ranma said to himself, smiling happily. His little reverie was broken when someone called out to him from one of the second story windows.  
"Hey, oyaji, what the hell are you doing here?" Asuka shouted with a wry grin, "Dontcha have some geriatric home you should be checking yourself into?"  
"Oyaji? What makes you call me an old man?" Ranma shouted back. Even though he technically was an old man, he was just curious. Asuka smiled evilly, "Because I found out from Shinji that you're at the ancient age of, what, sixty. Man, that's old,"  
Ranma smirked as he shouted back, "Ya have a nice sleep, little girl?"  
Her brows creased. She remembered hearing from Misato this morning that Ranma had touched one of her pressure points, knocking her out as it put her to a deep sleep.  
"My name's not 'little girl'," Asuka shouted back, "It's Asuka. You think you can remember that or might your memory be slipping due to your old age?"  
Ranma continued to have his fun, "No, I don't think I'll forget that name...unfortunately. But then again, who could forget a person with a winning personality like you?" he said sarcastically, a wry smile on his lips.  
Asuka was not going to lose this verbal battle, not after that humiliating one she had lost to when Ranma had struck one of her pressure points. Shinji, curious as to who Asuka had been talking to, walked up to the window, immediately noticing Ranma.  
"R-Ranma, what are you doing here?" he asked.  
Ranma shouted back, "I'll answer you in a sec. You're on your lunch break, right? Well, I'm sick of tired of having to shout. I'll come up to yer classroom," He then entered the school through the front doors.  
"Considering how old he is, he'll probably fall and break a leg on his way up here," Asuka commented wryly.  
Ranma entered the classroom, not really all that worried if there was a teacher present or not. If there was a teacher, he would simply make something up to explain his presence. Luckily for him, there wasn't one.  
"Who are you?" Toji asked curiously, "Are you the a sub?"  
Ranma smirked, looking at Asuka with a wry grin and then said, "Yep. I'm the new sub. Class, please be seated,"  
"But there's still ten more minutes left before class ends," the class rep, Hikari, said.  
Ranma brushed the comment aside, "I know. That gives you an extra ten minutes more to learn what I'm gonna teach you,"  
"He's not the substitute. He's just an perverted old man!" Asuka shouted, pointing at Ranma. She didn't want him in the same room as her, much less acting like he was teaching the class, "He doesn't belong here,"  
Ranma pretended to look at a list of names that was on the podium before him. He then said, "You must be Asuka. I've heard a lot about you, that you're a real nasty one,"  
"Hey, oyaji, why dontcha go back to the geriatric ward that you came from? You don't belong here!" Asuka said with a wry smile. She planned on embarrassing him to death.  
Ranma looked at Asuka, pretending hurt, "Oyaji?" He then looked at the class, "Class, do you think I'm an old man? How old do I look to you?"  
"You look like you're in your early twenties, and you're very cute," a female classmate commented.  
Ranma smirked. He had forgotten how open the girls are nowadays. And of course, they would say that stuff since they actually thought he was a substitute and wanted to make him nervous. He also recalled what kind of questions he would be barraged with in a second.  
"Thank you, um," he faked looking at the paper, "Junko, that's very nice of you to say that,"  
"My name's Keiko," The girl said, blushing a bit, she jerked a thumb toward another girl, "She's Junko,"  
"Oh, I'm sorry. I must've read the wrong name," Ranma responded glibly. When he noticed the girl giving him this starry eyed look, he got a bit nervous. Hikari raised her hand and then stood up. She asked, "Sensei, do you have a girlfriend?"  
Toji, who was sitting rather casually in his chair, looked at Hikari curiously and asked "Why do you ask that? Ya interested in him?"  
Hikari blushed. How clueless could that boy actually be? She whispered, "Dontcha get it. I'm the class rep. It's a tradition that I ask, um, embarrassing question to a young male substitute whenever one shows up,"  
Toji shrugged his shoulders, "Oh. Okay," He went back to ignoring everything else.  
Ranma smiled. He might as well have some fun while he was still on this world, "No. I don't have a girlfriend, but I'm definitely looking for one," For a split second, he actually felt guilty. He was sixty goddamnit. He continued, "I'm looking for the right girl. Could you be her?"  
Hikari blushed beet red. This little joke was backfiring.  
Luckily for her, Asuka came to the rescue and said, "Nah, she wouldn't be the one right for you. She's human. She's much too good for you. You should look for people that belong to the same species as you,"  
Ranma smirked, and then changed the subject, "Anyway, I'm here to teach you about...um... human development,"  
Toji seemed to perk up a bit. He raised his hand and asked, "As in Human Sexuality?"  
"Suzuhara..." Hikari said, giving Toji a scornful look. "Um, er, not really," Ranma quickly said, "It's about...what it's capable of. Yeah, that's it,"  
"What the hell are you up to, oyaji?" Asuka muttered.  
Ranma smirked and said, "Asuka. Go stand out in the hall. I will not have you interrupting my class without raising a hand,"  
"Go to hell!" came the reply. Asuka gave Ranma a look that would probably kill a man. Unfortunately, Ranma wasn't at all perturbed.  
"All right. Everyone here gets a zero on the pop quiz I plan on giving at the end of today's lesson," Ranma said, grinning from ear to ear. God, this was fun.  
The class gave Asuka a odd look.  
"What the hell's wrong with all of you? He's not even a substitute!" she said in contempt, "Why do you actually believe he's a damn substitute?" The class continued to stare at her.  
Ranma, figuring he should really put Asuka in a situation like that, said, "Class, forget that last one. She could stay. Ahem, now, if you don't mind, Asuka-chan. Please, be seated. Okay, now what I'm here to teach you is...what the hell was that...human something?"  
"Human development, sensei," a girl corrected him.  
"Yeah, that's it. Thank you," Ranma said, not even embarrassed. "Anyway, I'm gonna demonstrate to you what ki is and how to use it. But first, I must say that ki is a power that can not be abused. You must swear to me that you would not use it for evil purposes. You must not use it to help those devil...um...Angel thingies."  
The class was silent. What was this substitute babbling about? Why on earth would he make everyone swear?  
When Ranma noticed the moment of awkward silence, he said, "All right. That's good enough for me. Um," He pretended looking at the paper, "Shinji, can you please come here? I would like to volunteer for a demonstration,"  
"I-I c-can't"  
"C'mon," Ranma persisted.  
"H-hai," Shinji said meekly.  
"What the hell is he up to?" Asuka muttered, more to herself than anyone else. Toji heard though.  
"Will ya just shut up? This ki stuff sounds interesting," he commented.  
"You shut up you walking gorilla," Asuka snapped back Shinji walked up to the front desk. Once Shinji was next to him, Ranma whispered, "Yo, Shinji, ya up to learning this stuff? I'll show you more on this after school. I know I said I'll swing by Misato's by evening, but have something else I wanna do later. Anyway, I'll be around the courtyard here after school. Can you meet me there?"  
"Is this why you're going all this pretend substitute stuff just to tell me?" he asked.  
Ranma nodded, "Yeah. Why not? I could be fun," He then picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote 'Ki' in bold letters on the chalkboard. He said, "Ki. Everyone has it. It's what you would consider inner energy. Y'see, everything, living and non-living have this internal energy called ki. Now, what I'm here to teach you is how to harness this energy,"  
"Huh?" Toji, although interested, was lost.  
"It's all fake, you dolt!" Asuka said to Toji, "He's makin' this stuff up!"  
Ranma placed a hand on Shinji's shoulder and, all of a sudden, a blue aura formed around the two of them. The class, except for Rei, was shocked to see this. They continued to stare, mouth agape. Asuka watched uninterestedly. Ranma said, "All right Shinji, walk over to the window and point yer hand toward the sky, palm open,"  
Shinji did as he was told.  
"Now, whenever you feel like it, release all your energy. Picture a fireball erupting from your hand," Ranma said.  
Shinji did as he was told, but was now expecting what would happened. A massive ki-blast erupted from his hands shooting up into the sky. The entire class was staring at Shinji, a shocked expression on all of their faces. Toji fell backwards and off his chair, caught totally by surprise at what he saw. Everyone else was deathly silent, still staring.  
"Wow, Shinji, have you ever done this before?" Ranma said with pretend surprise, "You sure caught on to this stuff real quick,"  
"W-w-what the h-hell was that?" Asuka said, very much shocked like the entire class. She had never seen something like that before. It was even more shocking to see that Shinji had actually played a part in this.  
Ranma looked at Shinji and smiled, "Don't tell her how to do it. Let her suffer, hee hee," He turned toward the class, "Well, class, that is what you would call ki in one of its many forms,"  
At that moment, the teacher chose that time to enter the classroom. When he caught sight of Ranma, he said, "Who the hell are you?"  
Ranma, caught up in the act of shocking everyone, forgot to stop his little charade and said, "I'm the new substitute. Why?"  
"Sub?" the teacher said, "For what? My, you're awfully young looking to be a teacher, albeit a substitute one,"  
"Human development," Ranma said as he regarded the teacher for a short moment. The teacher was short and stocky and was balding.  
"I'm sorry, but I think you have the wrong room. First of all, as you can see, I'm not sick. And second of all, if I were sick, you would be teaching history," the teacher said.  
Ranma, finally realizing that this was actually a real teacher he was talking to, finally said, "Oops. Um, I must be in the wrong class. Sorry 'bout that. I'll be on my way," As he was about to head out, he quickly said to Shinji, "Like I said, I'll be at the courtyard after school," He opened the door and was about to leave when one of the boys made a comment, "C'mon, show us more. That was so cool! I wanna know how you do that!"  
The teacher looked at Ranma curiously. He was wondering how this youngster had done to get these damn kids to actually be interested in learning something. What was there to human development that was so interesting to learn. Afterall, human development didn't dwell that much on human sexuality. That was another course all together.  
Ranma smiled weakly and apologetically as he said, "Sorry class. I didn't mean to teach that. Forget you learned it."  
But, before he left the class, he turned toward the teacher.  
"Can you do me a favor?" Ranma asked.  
"What is it?" the short man asked.  
Ranma pointed toward Asuka, smiling wryly directly at her.  
"That girl over there. She kept interrupting me while I was trying to teach. Can you please do me a favor and have her stand out in the hallway for a short while."  
The teacher nodded. "Okay, I'll do that,"  
As a teacher to another, the man would grant him that favor. Ranma smirked one more time at Asuka before he left.

Shinji stepped out of school and into the courtyard where he saw Ranma talking to a young female teacher. It seemed a few of the females noticed him waiting there and wanted to talk to him and get to know him. Only one of them had the courage.  
"Not too long. I only started here a very short while ago, about three months ago," the young teacher said.  
The teacher noticed Shinji walk up to them and turned her attention toward him, "Why hello, Shinji-kun. How are you doing?"  
Shinji said meekly, "I'm doing fine, sensei,"  
"Well, I guess I better get going now," the teacher said, "Perhaps I'll see you again,"  
Ranma smiled softly, "All right. Perhaps we might bump into each other again. Ja,"  
Shinji and Ranma stood together and watched the young teacher leave. Once she was out of earshot, Shinji said, "Do you know her?"  
Ranma shook his head, "No. I just met her today. She seems nice,"  
Shinji was silent for a moment. He wondered if he should tell Ranma that almost every guy in the school had a thing for her. He figured it was best to let him find out for himself. "Um, you wanted to see me after school, right? Well, I'm here,"  
"Yeah, and that's good," Ranma said, "Is there any place we could go that, well, no one could get hurt or would be bothering us?"  
Shinji thought about it for a moment, "Well, we could always go to the park. It's not too far from here. Also, you said you were going to stop by Misato-san's later today. What's with the change in plans?"  
"Well, I wanna go away for a little while, and I wanna leave tonight," He responded, "And it's better since there's daylight anyway,"  
"Um, all right,"  
Asuka and Rei emerged from the school.  
Ranma looked at Asuka, "Hello,"  
"Hmph!" Asuka said, turning a head toward Ranma. She didn't want to see him. Ever. She had made her day turn out to be one of the worst in history. Never had she been this angry at someone in her life.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulder and turned toward Rei, "Hello. We haven't really met each other. I'm Ranma Saotome,"  
"Rei Ayanami," came a soft reply. She didn't even hold eye contact with Ranma.  
"Why are you here?" Asuka said, contempt in her voice.  
"I came here to teach you what you saw earlier. Ki," He responded. "Since ki seems to help out quite a bit when you fight against those aliens-"  
"Angels," Asuka said, "At least get the terminology right,"  
Ranma's brows creased for a short moment. He sighed, "All right, Asuka, Angels. Anyway, I'm here to teach you about ki so it could help you fight against those Angels,"  
"Why?" Rei asked.  
"Well, I'm here to help out the best that I can. And I'm here to teach you before I leave," Ranma said.  
"Leave? Where?" Asuka said. Her eyes seemed to light up. She would love for Ranma to leave. Now would be a good time as any.  
Ranma said, "I wanna go back to where I came from. I'm leaving Tonight,"  
"Good," Asuka commented. "The sooner you leave, the better,"  
He ignored her, "I'll teach you the basic fundamentals of how to use ki and harness it. The only problem is that it takes quite a while to be able to manipulate ki effectively. What you saw Shinji do, well, that was one of the examples of ki. I showed him some more examples last night at Misato's,"  
"You did? When?" Asuka asked. She didn't remember seeing Ranma showing Shinji.  
"After I put you to sleep," Ranma answered matter-of-factly, "Anyway, it's very easy to call forth ki, this inner energy, but it's very hard to use it effectively,"  
"Why are you showing us how to use this?" Rei asked, "We are EVA pilots,"  
Ranma looked at her, a confused and embarrassed look on his face, "Oh shit. I forgot about that,"  
"Idiot,"  
Ranma took a deep breath, still ignoring Asuka, and said, "Now that I think about it, there's no real way you could use ki from within those robots...um...EVAs. Man, that kinda puts a damper on the effectiveness of what I'm gonna teach you,"  
"I still wanna learn it though," Shinji said.  
"That's because you're a wimp and need it," Asuka commented wryly. "It'll become your backbone,"  
Shinji looked down at the ground. She was right. That one moment last night and today when he had experienced the power of ki had brought his confidence level through the roof. Unfortunately, when Asuka noticed Shinji looking a bit happy that morning, and began teasing him, bringing his confidence back down.  
Ranma looked at Asuka. She looked back at him, defying him, her eyes showing the utmost contempt toward him. He shook his head in disgust at her and turned toward Shinji, "Well, Shinji, I'll be glad to teach you. You could use ki in anything, even in the real world, like healing yourself,"  
"Don't shake your head at me like that!" Asuka said.  
Ranma turned toward Asuka, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! What the hell's wrong with you? Dontcha ever shut up? You keep yabberin' and yabberin'. Dontcha ever run outta things to say? Jeez,"  
"Why dontcha just leave? We don't need you here!" came Asuka's retort. "We were doing just fine without you,"  
Ranma pretended to pull out his hair, "Shut up! Shut up! What's with you always havin' the last word? Are you always like this? All stuck up and bitchy? I mean, I respect females and all, I respect 'em more than I do males, but you're really making me think otherwise,"  
Asuka opened her mouth to say, only to catch sight of Ranma extending a finger toward her.  
"If you don't shut up, I'm gonna push your pressure point again and put you to sleep," he said seriously. He waved a index at her threateningly, "You'll find yourself waking up somewhere very embarrassing, like the men's restroom or a men's bathhouse,"  
"Is that a threat?" she said, her anger rising "How dare you threaten me?" When she saw Ranma take a step toward her, she covered her breasts, "Stay away from me y-you pervert! I-I'll s-scream!"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "So?" He took in a deep breath, "I'm asking this nicely. Will you please be quiet? Cause you're making it very hard for me to be nice to you,"  
Asuka's brows creased.  
"R-Ranma? What are you doing here?"  
Ranma turned around to face Misato.  
"M-Misato? What are you doing here?" Ranma asked.  
"I came here to pick the children up for work," she responded.  
"Work? They work? Aren't there child labor laws around here?"  
Misato and Shinji burst out laughing. Asuka snickered at Ranma's ignorance. Rei smirked.  
Misato shook her head, "No. Not as in workin' in some kind of sweatshop or anything. I have to bring them to Nerv Headquarters for some synchro tests. Just some testing, that's all,"  
"Oh," Ranma said, "But, um, could that wait till later? I mean, I was about to teach Shinji some more about ki,"  
"I thought you were going to stop by my apartment later tonight,"  
Ranma nodded, "Well, yeah, I was. But I kinda wanna get back to my own world, so I wanted to leave tonight,"  
"Your world, you mentioned about that earlier," Misato said, changing the subject, "What's it like?"  
Ranma looked around, "Well, judging from what I see around me, my world is more technologically advanced, at least, it used to be until the downfall of Genom. But otherwise, it's pretty much the same. But that's besides the point. I was kinda hopin' to be teachin' Shinji now,"  
"Um, no can do," Misato said, shaking her head, "We have to do the synchronization tests. We have to make it a top priority. We need to constantly keep in check of how well the children could synchronize with the EVA units," She wondered if she should be saying all this stuff to Ranma. It didn't really matter because he was the key to everything, the key to finally ridding this world of Angels once and for all.  
Ranma sighed, "But, I wanna leave tonight. All right, when are these tests finished?"  
"In two hours,"  
"All right, how about I come with you there and I'll teach Shinji there. That way, we could save the time it takes for him to get from there and to your apartment,"  
Misato wondered what she should do at that moment, "Wait a minute. I just thought of something. You can come along with us. While there, you can show us, as in Ritsuko and I, how this works. Perhaps we could develop some kind of weapon to generate that kinda energy,"  
Ranma scratched the back of his head, "Um, I don't really think that would work. I mean, ki, it's an internal thing. Can you recreate that?"  
Misato smiled, "We can recreate a lotta things. Even if it doesn't work, it's best give it a try. It's better to have tried and failed than to go on wondering if it ever have worked,"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "All right, I'm game. But, after that, I leave. There's a village I plan on visiting. If I'm lucky, there's gonna be a special item there that'll get me back home,"  
"And what would you do if it isn't there?" Misato asked, "Or worse, what happens if it doesn't get you home like you expected?"  
Ranma thought about it for a moment before answering, "Well, there's actually two items. There's that box I came to this world in. And then there's a special mirror. So, I have two chances of getting back. If not, well, I'll hafta find a way. It shouldn't be too hard. I mean, I've seen some strange things happen, and that isn't all that farfetched. Heck, I even went back in time once, but that's besides the point,"  
"Y-you went back i-in time?" Misato asked. She couldn't comprehend the possibility of it. She imagined would could have happened, how the world would be different, the Second Impact had been prevented. The possibilities were endless.  
"Yeah, I went back in time," Ranma said matter-or-factly, "I met one of my fiancees' great grandmother. I also met my father's grandmaster when he was young. It was some really freaky stuff."  
"Fiancees? As in plural of fianc e?" Misato said.  
"Yeah, at the time, I had...one, two, three, four fiancees, five if you count that Tea Ceremony girl," he said.  
"F-five fiancees?" Misato said, a bit dubious, "What, were you stringing four other girls along?"  
Ranma shook his head, "Nope. All five girls were my fiancees against my will. Ahem, but that's besides the point, Misato. We're straying way off the subject. Anyway, I'll come with you to this Nerv Headquarters. I'll demonstrate for you guys in hopes of you being able to recreate ki. That way, you can battle these Angel thingies without my help. All right?"  
Misato nodded, "All right"  
Asuka, who was listening to all this, was a bit stunned at hearing all this, "Um, is a-all that true?"  
"Huh? What do you mean?" "About all the things you've been through,"  
Ranma nodded, "Yeah, and much much more,"  
"Like what?" Shinji asked, also curious. Rei looked a bit interested also, although she didn't show it much.  
Together, everyone headed for Nerv Headquarters.  
"Well, I used to be cursed to immortality," Ranma said, "That's why I look so young. I've traveled back in time, became engaged to more girls against my will than I can remember, fought with ghosts and dragons, seen giant lizards, battled these machines called boomers, and a lot more,"  
Shinji was more interested in what Ranma had said first, "Cursed to immortality?"  
"Yes, I used to be cursed. I'm no longer cursed anymore," Ranma said, "Actually, I wasn't immortal. I mean, I could die, but not through natural means...at least, it was virtually impossible. You see, there was a cursed for I changed into when splashed with cold water, and while in that cursed form, I aged backwards toward the original age of when I was first cursed, age fifteen. When I get splashed with hot water, I reverted back to my original form, but, I would be reverted back to a younger age. Let's just say my curse led me into a heap of trouble and was pretty much the cause of all my troubles,"  
"T-that's crazy," Misato commented.  
"Look, perhaps we'll talk about this some other day," he said, pausing for a brief moment, "I don't really like talkin' about my past all that much. I've had some pretty bad memories of it,"  
"As in what?" Rei asked, silent most of the time until now.  
"Well, if you really wanna know, when I was young, I lost everything," Ranma said in a sad tone, "I mean everything. I lost my family, my friends, everything that I cared for. The town I lived in was destroyed completely. From what I remember, only three people outta hundreds of thousands survived. A girl named Lisa, my nemesis Ryoga, and myself. That's all,"  
"T-that's h-horrible," Shinji said. He realized Ranma must had gone through a lot of pain and suffering.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, none of his emotions evident, "But you don't really hafta worry about that. That happened a long long time ago. I can't change the past at least, I've never tried. I wouldn't try anyway because I would probably end up screwing everything up. Anyway, I've learned to go on with my life,"  
There was a moment of silence. Asuka, even though she hated him, even felt sorry for Ranma.  
Ranma walked through the corridors. "Great! Just great! I pull a Ryoga and get lost. Where the hell am I?" he muttered to himself, looking around, unable to discern any differences in all those plain looking walls. Everything looked the same. There was nothing for him to use as reference to see if he was walking around in a circle or not. Why the hell did he walk off while waiting for those synchronization test to finish?  
"Well, I'm a guy, and I ain't gonna ask for directions," Ranma commented. He continued to walk around, accidentally bumping into a pretty girl this short brown hair.  
"Sorry," he gave a meek smile.  
"It's okay," she said. She regarded the handsome young man for a moment before asking, "Are you looking for someone?" When she noticed Ranma's civilian clothes, she asked, "Um, do you belong here? Do you have the proper authorization?"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Authorizations? Probably not. I'm just walking around, um, exploring the joint,"  
Maya continued to regard the young man for a moment. She couldn't help but feel her heart racing a bit. He sure was good-looking. "Well, without the proper authorization, you don't belong here. I'll escort you out," she said.  
"What kinda authorization do I need?" Ranma asked, "Wait. I think I do have authorization. Misato invited me. I'm here to help Nerv out,"  
"Help out?" Maya asked, "How?"  
"Well, after these synchro testings, I'm supposed to teach Shinji how to manipulate ki," Ranma said.  
"Well, the tests ended ten minutes ago. I was just coming from the testing labs," she said, "Misato and the others are still there. Um, are you Ranma?"  
Ranma nodded, "Yep,"  
So this is Ranma, Maya said. She remembered Misato walking up to her and asking her if she had seen a man named Ranma. When Maya had asked who Ranma was, Misato had told her he was a very good looking man with black hair that was in a pig-tail.  
"Please, come with me," Maya said as she walked down the corridor. Ranma followed her blindly.  
After a few minutes of walking, turning down several corners, she gestured toward a large steel door, "They're in there,"  
"Thanks," he gave her a smile as he walked past her and through the door.  
When Ranma entered the room, he saw Misato, Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and Ritsuko.  
"Oh, hello, Ritsuko," Ranma said with a smile. Misato turned and looked at the blond haired girl, a odd look on her face.  
"You two know each other?" Misato asked Ritsuko.  
Ritsuko replied, "We, um, bumped into each other last night,"  
Misato gave Ritsuko a wry smile, "Oh, really?"  
Ranma, totally oblivious to the staring between the females, turned toward Shinji, "All right, Shinji, when do ya wanna get started?"  
Misato turned away from Ritsuko and said, "Um, weren't you going to give us some demonstration? I mean, after that talk earlier, I thought you were going to show everyone while Ritsuko and I observe,"  
Ranma nodded, "Yeah, I plan on doing that, but, I figured since I'm going to be observed, I might as well teach Shinji also. You know, kill two birds with one stone,"  
Ritsuko shook her head, taking on a professional tone, "It's better if we just observe you by yourself,"  
"Huh? How come?"  
"Well, our computers won't have to observe two people at once," Ritsuko said, "It'll be better to concentrate just one you,"  
Ranma looked at Shinji, "Is that all right with you?"  
Shinji nodded.  
Ranma then turned toward Ritsuko, "All right, I guess I could give a demonstration. I would like to leave then,"  
"Leave? For where?" Ritsuko asked.  
Ranma sighed, "Don't worry about it. It's just that I plan on leaving after this. Anyway, let's get started,"

Ranma took in a deep breath as he looked around the observation chamber. He was somewhere in Nerv Headquarters, within a heavily reinforced room that had been specifically build to contain an Angel in case one had ever been captured. The room was massive. It was virtually the size of a football field in length, width, as well as height. In the middle of the room was a cylinder several feet thick, about as tall at Ranma.  
"What do ya want me to do?" he called out.  
"Do whatever you want," Misato's voice entered. She and everyone else were in a tiny observation booth on the extreme end of the room, separated by ten feet of reinforced glass. Shinji watched intently as did Ritsuko and Misato. Rei watched stoically while Asuka, too, watched, but pretending not to be all that interested.  
"Like what?" he asked.  
"Anything," Misato said into the microphone, "We just want to observe your powerlevels and attempt to recreate it if possible. We need more studies on it. That's all. I know, throw those fireball thingies of yours,"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "All right," Without much effort, he extending his hand toward the object and shot a tiny ki-blast toward the cylinder, utterly destroying it, it melting into a puddle of melted steel. "My god!" Ritsuko said, looking at the sudden numbers that popped up on the screen, "How did he do that? That cylinder is made of the same materials as the progressive knives!" She looked at the screen and her eyes creased, "Wow, the powerlevels are through the roof. The computers can't seem to get a real good reading, but all the energy seems to be emanating from within him,"  
Misato nodded, "Yes, that's what he mentioned to me, but exact how is what I'm curious about finding out,"  
Asuka humphed. She wasn't impressed at all. He was still an asshole. She would be able to wipe the floor with him if she was piloting Unit-  
02.  
Shinji's eyes were wide open. God, how he wished he knew how to do something like that. With powers like that, who needed EVAs.  
Ranma watched as the floor below the cylinder opened up and the melted ooze disappearing below it. After a short moment. Another cylinder started to rise from the opening, the floor closing below it. "Don't worry about the cylinders," Ritsuko said, "We have quite a few of those. Please, go on with your, um, testings. We'll continue to monitor and observe you,"  
"All right. What else would you like me to do?" "Anything you like," Misato said, "You're free to experiment with whatever you like. We're just here to monitor and observe you, that's all. We're very interested in finding out exactly how you manage to generate and harness all that energy,"  
"It's all from within,"  
"I know," came Misato rather exasperated voice, "But we don't exactly know how it come from, as you say it, 'within'. Just continue on. We're here to watch. Oh, I know, use one of you strongest blasts. I'd like to know exactly how strong you are. I assume that last blast wasn't your strongest,"  
Ranma nodded, "No. It wasn't at all my strongest. As for my strongest blast, that would be my seppukku blast, and, well, frankly, no thank you. Let's just say this room is too small. Also, as you can tell by what I call it, I would most likely die if I tried it...even though I survived it throwing it three times already. Once when I was young, another when showing my friend Ryoga, and a third when I tried to stop this supercomputer from self-destructing,"  
"Hmph, perhaps he should try it. Perhaps we'll get lucky and he'll succeed in killing himself," Asuka muttered to herself, even though it was loud enough for everyone in the tiny observation room to hear.  
Misato said, "All right. All right. Don't show us your 'seppukku blast'. Show us something else, anything,"  
"Okay," Ranma said.  
Everyone watched eagerly as Ranma approached the cylinder.  
"I wonder what he's going to do," Shinji commented, more to himself than anyone else.  
When Ranma was close enough to the cylinder, he cocked an arm back and stuck it with an open palm. Everyone in the room gasped as they saw the cylinder go flying backwards through the air, seemingly moving as if totally parallel to the ground, where it crashed into one of the highly reinforced walls on the other end of the room.  
Ranma turned toward the window and smiled, "How's that?"  
"W-what the heck did you just do?" Misato said, shock in her voice, "How the heck did you send that thing flying like that?"  
"I just hit it, why?" he asked.  
"The thing weighs fifteen tons!" she said, "A shell from a tank can propel an object of that weigh that far and that fast,"  
Ranma shrugged again, "Fifteen tons? It felt lighter to me. But then again, considering I have been getting strong and stronger as time pass..."  
"Did you use your 'ki' when you did that attack?" Ritsuko voice filtered into the room.  
He shook his head, "No. It was one of my run-of-the-mill open palm strikes, why?"  
"I figured," she said, "The computer here gave off no readings of your 'ki',"  
"Oh, you want me to use 'ki' based attack?" Ranma asked, "I didn't realize that. Okay, no problem,"  
"Let's try this again," Ritsuko said, "This time, something ki-based,"  
She pressed a button on the control panel in front of her. The floor where the cylinder used to be opened up, another cylinder emerging.  
Ranma grinned, cracking his knuckles.  
"Okay," he said as he concentrated his ki, "I'll try something I've never done before," Although there was no nothing wrong with his old one, he felt it was about time he developed some new techniques. And now was probably the best time. Sure, he wished Cologne was there to help him develop some new moves, but since she had died many many years ago in the 'Nerima Massacre', he would have to learn new techniques on his own.  
He closed his eyes and concentrated his ki, his aura blazing. He wondered what kind of technique he should learn. Realizing that he had two forms of projectiles and one form of physical attack, he figured it was best to develop yet another physical attack.  
"Yeah, that's what I'll try and perfect," Ranma said confidently to himself, making a fist with one hand, "Some kinda super attack. Since my Kashuu Tenshin Amaguriken deals with speed, I guess it's best to develop one that deal with sheer power,"  
Not wanting really knowing the extent of his powers, Ranma concentrated a fraction of his ki toward his right hand. Slowly, the blue aura surrounding his body started to subside as this red aura started to grow surrounding his clenched hand.  
"Cool!" Ranma commented, looking at his hand. "What are you doing, Ranma?" Ritsuko's voice entered the vast room.  
"I dunno, I'm improvising," came the reply, "Cool, right? Anyway, I'm trying to develop some new move, that's all,"  
With his hand still glowing red, Ranma walked over to the cylinder. He wondered if he should shoot this ki from his fist or just punch away. Choosing to do the latter, Ranma cocked his hand backward and bent his knees, going into a low crouch, a perfect uppercutting position. He then brought his fist upward and struck the cylinder. The moment his fist hit the cylinder, this massive explosion erupted, enveloping Ranma in this perfect sphere of pure energy. "Holy shit!" Misato shouted, looking out the window and catching sight of the blast as it engulfed Ranma and quickly began to expand at an extreme rate in every direction, "I-it's coming straight toward us!" She turned around and dove for cover, lunging right into Rei and knocking her out of the way as the glass exploded, spraying to room with shrapnel. Luckily for its occupants, almost everyone had responded quickly enough to dive down toward the ground and take cover, none of the glass hitting them. After a moment, when the smoke from the fire abated, everyone slowly got to their feet. Misato was the first one to peer out the now glassless window. Her eyes widened as she saw the entire massive room covered in a black soot from the energy that had struck its walls. Lying in the middle of this huge crater that had been crated in the middle of the room was Ranma, totally unmoving.  
"R-Ranma!"

Ranma was hurt.  
Misato was by his bedside.  
"Ugh, what...happened?" he asked, looking around.  
Misato was silent for several moments before she answered. It looked like there had been a lot on her mind, "Ranma, y-you're finally awake,"  
"H-how...long was I...out?" "A long long time," Misato said with a slightly wavering voice, "We didn't know if you were going to wake up or not,"  
"How long?"  
"About a month,"  
"M-month?" Ranma was shocked to hear how long he had been out.  
"Yes, three Angels have attacked while you were out. We managed to stop them, although barely," Misato said.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders a bit, "Oh well, I guess my wanting to leave after the demonstration fell through,"  
He smiled a bit as Misato chuckled.  
"Um, I was worried you weren't going to wake up," she said after a short moment.  
Ranma slowly sat upright. Every muscle in his body seemed to scream out in pain. He tried to smile, "How flattering, you were worried about me,"  
Misato blushed a bit. Even though he was badly hurt, he still managed to act like a jerk, "For your information, I was worried that you wouldn't wake up. That way, we wouldn't be able to learn about these power you possess,"  
Ranma smiled, although slightly, "I'm hurt that you would say something like that."  
Misato felt extremely guilty for saying something like that. She was about to apologize when all of a sudden, he burst out laughing, unable to hold himself back. He stopped laughing as surges of pain racked his body.  
"Serves you right," she scowled.  
Ranma took in a deep breath. Jeez, why was he still here? Instead of being in a hospital recuperating, he should be somewhere in China looking for the damn nanban mirror. But then again, he was never the type of person to walk away when others needed his help. It wasn't in his nature to be selfish. Arrogant, yes. Selfish, not really.  
All of a sudden, Asuka and Shinji and Rei entered the room.  
"Really, I don't see why we have to visit him!" Asuka said to Shinji, "I mean, he was the idiot who got himself hurt. He's the idiot, not us. We're not obligated to come and visit. Besides, why would I wanna visit some jerk like him anyway?" It was the same thing she constantly complained about every time she came here. When she noticed that Ranma was actually awake and looking at her, she stopped talking. She was positive he had heard what she had said about him.  
Ranma's brow creased a bit but then relaxed, "You came to visit me, Asuka?"  
Asuka responded, "Yeah, but, for your information, I came because I had to, not because I wanted to,"  
"How are you?" Shinji asked, "When did you wake up?"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders a bit, "I'm all right I guess. I've been better. I woke up only a few minutes ago," He then turned toward Asuka, "Hey, Asuka, I betcha I know why you came."  
"Fine, I'll humor you. Why?"  
"I betcha you had trouble sleeping at night, knowing that I was here," he said, "Did you actually sleep at home, or by my bedside, waiting for me to wake up. But then again, since you're a perverted little girl, I betcha you slip into my bed since I was unconscious and wouldn't know to difference,"  
"You're an asshole!"  
"So?"  
"Argh!" she shouted in frustration. She walked over to the vase full of roses, pulled out the roses, and tried to splash Ranma with the water inside.  
Ranma, smiling, said, "Seems like that vase only had plastic flowers, thus, no water,"  
Asuka gritted her teeth. He was making a total fool of her, "I wish you never came outta that coma. We would have all been better off!" Wanting to get away from such an asshole like Ranma, Asuka stormed out of the room, vowing that she would never come back, no matter what her superiors tell her.  
Ranma gazed at the door Asuka left through and said sarcastically, "What's with her?" "Perhaps it was because you were treating her unkindly," Rei commented stoically.  
He looked at Rei for a moment and smiled, "Well, if she treated me nicely, without insulting me..." He left the rest off, letting the group finish the sentence for him.  
Misato, finally unable to contain herself, burst out laughing, "God, ha ha, that was funny. It's always amusing watching you two butt heads with each other!" Shinji was the only one to change the subject. He asked, "What happened? I remember seeing you hit that cylinder with that glowing hand and all of a sudden, I was diving for cover,"  
Ranma said weakly, "I dunno. I was tryin' to develop a new technique. I guess it backfired. It was way too strong for me,"  
Ritsuko entered the room. When she noticed Ranma look up at her, she became extremely self aware of herself. She looked at him and said, "Um, h-how do you feel?"  
"All right, I guess," Ranma said. A silent moment ensued.  
Ranma, not wanting to stay in the bed anymore, got up and out, "I ain't staying here anymore,"  
As soon as he stepped off his bed, the bed sheets fell to his feet. He looked down and noticed he was stark naked. He looked up at Misato, and then at Ritsuko. It didn't worry him. They were all adults, surely, Misato and Ritsuko had seen a naked man. Having Shinji in there didn't matter because Shinji was also a guy. But when Ranma's eyes rested on the young blue haired girl, he panicked, "Oh shit!" He quickly scurried back under the bed sheets.  
"Sorry you had to see that," Ranma apologized, "I forgot you were in here," He hoped he didn't scar the little girl for life. At her age, she should be seeing the world, not a naked man.  
"It doesn't bother me," Rei said stoically. She wasn't even blushing. Ritsuko and Misato, on the other hand, were both blushing beet red. For some reason, both of them would be having trouble sleeping tonight and probably many nights to come.  
Ranma, realizing that Rei was actually telling the truth, shrugged his shoulders. Figuring he was in luck to be in the presence of people unbothered by his lack of modesty, Ranma got back up, wrapping the bed sheet around his waist, his upper body exposed for everyone to see. "Um, why am I naked?" Ranma asked to no one in particular.  
"Well, it's so you don't go running off like ya did that other time," Misato said, "You remember, you busted out of the room, stormed into the room we were in, and then just up and left us,"  
"Oh. I guess that could work," he said. He walked out of the room, bed sheets dragging on the ground. Outside in the corridor, several nurses stopped dead in their track at the sight of a half naked Ranma. One of them accidentally dropped her syringe.  
Ranma walked up to on of them, "Um, excuse me. I would like to know where my clothes are,"  
"Ranma! Get back in here!" Misato shouted from Ranma's hospital room. It looked like she was scared to actually follow after Ranma into the open where everyone was.  
Asuka, who had been at the end of the hallway, sitting sulkily in a chair, looked up and saw Ranma talking to a nurse, "What the?"  
Ranma, a bit exasperated, turned toward the nurse, "Well, where are my clothes?"  
The nurse, her eyes glassy, pointed numbly toward a cubby behind a counter. Ranma walked over to it and took out his clothes. He looked around for a restroom. Finding one, he walked over to it and went in it. After a short moment, he emerged, fully dressed.  
He gave Asuka a wry smile, "Um, Asuka, you can close your mouth now,"  
Asuka closed her mouth, embarrassed to death when she realized she had just been caught staring at Ranma.  
Ranma walked over to the room everyone was in an looked in, "Um, well guys, this is where I say goodbye,"  
"G-goodbye? What the hell are you talking about?" Misato said.  
"I'm gonna leave," Ranma said, "What else? I mean, I already demonstrated for you. Dontcha have the info ya need to do it?"  
Ritsuko shook her head, "No. Not at all. After that demonstration, we only found out how little we know about recreating this ki thing you've been telling us about,"  
At that moment, Misato's pager went off. "Shit!" she said, "Shit! Shit! Shit!"  
Ranma looked at Misato curiously. It was kind of funny how someone so beautiful could swear so unlady-like, "What's wrong?" he asked.  
Misato, ignoring Ranma, turned toward the children, "Guys, get ready! Another Angel's on its way! We've gotta prepare!" She turned toward Ranma "Ranma, I don't wanna beg, but we need your help. It's no wonder we managed to defeat that Angel with damaged EVAs, but our EVAs are still not fully repaired. Please, stay and help out..."  
Ranma nodded, not even having to think, "Sure. Of course I'll stay and Help,"  
Ranma was standing on the highest building in all of Tokyo-3. From his vantage point, it looked like he could see all the way to the ends of the world in every direction. He was wearing a headset, which consisted of earphones with a tiny communicator extending from forward in front of his mouth.  
"What do I do, just wait here?" Ranma said.  
He heard Misato's voice, "Just wait there. The Angel's expected to arrive in a minute or so. Be prepared,"  
"All right," he replied back. He looked around and saw three EVAs standing within the city limits. He knew the Angel was going to land by the city outskirts, the EVAs waiting patiently to ambush it. There, he saw this huge sphere of white light hovering in midair a hundred or so feet above a lone mountain top.  
"Is that it?" Ranma said, "Is that light over there how the Angel's gonna arrive?"  
"We don't really know," Misato said, "Every Angel's different in many ways. Each one is very unique in how they look and fight, and also, how they arrive,"  
All of a sudden, the white sphere shattered outward in every direction, leaving behind what seemed like an Angel.  
Ranma squinted his eyes and looked at the Angel, "No way!"

Ryoga looked down and noticed he was well above the terra firma. His face faulted as he realized gravity was bound to take place. When it did, he screamed.  
"Argh!" he shouted, flailing his arms as if he was trying to flap them fast enough to fly. As he fell downward at a blinding speed, Ryoga realized something, "Wait a minute, what do I have to be worried about? I can easily land on my feet," He remembered being able to land skillfully and safely from heights well beyond this one. He remembered jumping from a cliff a mile high and landing perfectly fine, not even disturbing the ground upon where he landed, when he and Ranma and Akane finally went back to Japan many years after the downfall of Genom.  
As the winds ripped by him as he rocketed toward the ground, Ryoga realized he was supposed to be holding something. "Oh no, where's the mirror?" he looked around. He remembered he had been holding a mirror a second ago. He spotted the mirror falling toward the ground several yards away from him, the ground rushing toward him at an extreme rate.  
Knowing that he needed that mirror to get back, Ryoga angled his body straight toward the mirror, hoping he would be able to reach it in time. Unfortunately, he was too late. The second his hands barely touched the mirror, he collided right into the ground. The sheer impact of him hitting the ground was so powerful that a small crater was created. Although Ryoga would be only slightly bruised from the impact, he realized it was too late as the mirror, slipping through his fingers and hitting the ground, shattered.  
Ryoga stared at the now broken mirror, its remnants scattered about.  
It took several long minutes before he realized what had just happened.  
His aura flared as he looked up at the sky.  
"No!"  
Ranma shielded his eyes as he saw a massive column of light and energy shoot straight up toward the sky.  
"Holy shit! What the hell is that?" she heard Misato's voice, "Our power scales are going through the roof! Shit! One of the scanners just exploded!"  
Ranma winced as a pain shot through his temple. He should have turned the volume down.  
He said, "Don't worry. It's nothing much to worry about,"  
"Not much? What's going on out there? Out scanners are blowing up one right after another!" came Misato's panic-stricken voice, "Maya, get the fire extinguisher! Anyway, Ranma, what's going on out there, we can't see anything on the viewscreen,"  
"Don't worry 'bout it," Ranma said, "It's only Ryoga,"  
"Ryoga?" he heard Shinji voice. He and the others had a constant communications line open so everyone could talk to and hear one another.  
"He's my...enemy," Ranma said, almost smirking.  
"Your enemy?" everyone said in unison.  
Ranma ignored the barrage of questions. Wanting to have his fun, he shot a massive ki blast right at the mountain Ryoga had landed on, his aim precise. What better way to get Ryoga's attention than to hit him upside the head with a ki-blast.  
A good portion of the mountain was engulfed in a massive explosion. When it subsided, the top part of the mountain was simply gone, like a knife that had been cut right through it, removing a portion of it.  
Ranma's eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets. He had no idea one of his ki-blasts could do something like that. He wasn't even trying. He knew his ki-blasts were strong, but not that strong. "Hm, perhaps having thrown a few of 'em over the days made me stronger," was all Ranma could come up with as he spoke to himself. For a moment, he felt a bit worried that he could have hurt Ryoga. But his guilt disappeared as he saw an equally massive ki-blast shot from the subsiding explosion, rocketing straight toward the building Ranma was on.  
"That's gonna hurt," Ranma commented, his eyes widening.  
Knowing that he didn't have enough time to simply jump out of the way, Ranma brought both hands forward and crossed it in front of himself and absorbed the full force of the ki-blast. The entire top half of the building was consumed in the explosion that ensued, Ranma caught in the blast.  
When the blast subsided, Ranma was somewhat bruised, his clothes singed. He looked around at what remained of the building and then snickered.  
"Ranma! Are you there?" he heard Misato's voice, startling him. He was surprised that the headset was still functioning after such a blast. "What was that massive surge of energy we saw hit the building you were on?"  
He replied, "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry, it was just Ryoga's ki-blast," He brushed of some debris left behind from the damaged building.  
"Don't worry, it's just Ryoga,"  
"What're you doin' here?" Ranma asked Ryoga.  
He and Ryoga and others were now both standing on the top of the mountain Ranma had almost blown up. Ranma and Asuka and Misato had been helicoptered in. Asuka, Rei, and Shinji were still in their EVA's, standing a short ways down the mountain.  
Ryoga looked at Ranma, an obvious look of contempt in his eyes. It was obvious Ryoga didn't appreciate having a ki-blast hit him in his back. "I oughta kill you right here for what you did to me earlier!" he said, his fangs showing. One of his hands was slowly starting to glow as he subconsciously built up his ki into another projectile, most likely intended for Ranma.  
Ranma smirked, "Keep your pants on. How else was I supposed to get your attention, huh? Also, what the hell brings you here?"  
Ryoga calmed down a bit, "Well, as much as I hate to, I came here to bring you back home,"  
Ranma's eyes lit up, "R-really? You're kidding me, right?"  
"Hmph," Ryoga spat, "I wish I was. For all I care about, you could stay here, where ever here is, and die. I came here to bring you back because Akane asked me to. Don't you dare think I would bring you back because I wanted to. I'm bringing ya back because I care so much about Akane that I would do anything for her, even bring you back with me, as much as I hate you,"  
Ranma smirked, "That's good to hear. It wouldn't feel right that you would actually worry about me. After all, we're enemies,"  
"Of course we are!"  
"So...how did you get here?" Ranma asked, not at all bothered by this slight aura still glowing around Ryoga. Misato and Ritsuko, on the other hand, were deathly silent. They were almost scared to move. This Ryoga guy sure looked very very angry and probably on the edge of going ballistic on Ranma.  
Ryoga waved a hand toward what remained of the mirror that had broken earlier, "I used the nanban mirror to get here. Unfortunately, as you can see, that's what remains of it..."  
"What?" Ranma said, his eyes widening, "B-b-but it's in pieces. H-how are we gonna get back?"  
Ryoga, realizing something, sneered and bared his fangs and said, "It was in good condition until after I get hit in the back by someone's ki-  
blast!" He wanted a good reason to beat Ranma up. Of course, hating him was good enough reason to blindly hurt him, but this seemed more reasonable.  
What Ranma said and did was totally unexpected on Ryoga's part.  
"Well then, it's all your fault! If you were half the man you were, you would've blocked that blast and not let the thing get destroyed!" Ranma said evilly, bringing a foot forward and kicking Ryoga right in the chest.  
Ryoga was sent flying backwards bodily, slamming into Unit-01's chest, the force of the impact nearly knocking the EVA off its feet. He slid off the EVA's chest and fell to the ground far below.  
Shinji had struggle with the controls to keep Unit-01 afoot. "What the?"  
Ryoga got up to his feet, glowing red with rage.  
"Die!"  
Ryoga leapt up into the air, up toward Unit-01's chest, propelling of it and triangle jumping back up to the top of the mountain. The force of Ryoga propelling off the EVA's chest caused it to fall backwards, slowly sliding down the mountain while on its back.  
"Damn!" Shinji shouted, trying his best to get his EVA to get back up onto its feet, much to no avail. He continued to slide down until he came to a halt at the foot of the mountains.  
Ryoga landed back on the top of the mountain, several feet from Ranma. With his aura flaring, Ryoga charged Ranma.  
Ranma, unperturbed, held out a quick hand, "Stop!"  
Ryoga came to skidding halt, "What?"  
Ranma jerked a finger over his shoulder toward Misato and Ritsuko. They were both staring at Ryoga. "I don't suggest us fighting because one wrong move, like a simple ki-blast, would get them both killed,"  
"Fine, I won't use one of those!" Ryoga spat. He then cocked his arm back and punched Ranma with such great force that it sent him sprawling backwards down the mountain side.  
"W-w-what's wrong with these guys?" Misato muttered, still staring.  
Ryoga seemed to calm down a bit, glad to have hit Ranma back for what he had done to him a second ago. He looked over at Misato and Ritsuko and noticed them staring.  
Blushing a little bit since he felt like he was under the scrutiny of those two females Ryoga said, "Um, I-I'm Ryoga. Ryoga Hibiki,"  
"And I'm shocked," Misato commented. She snapped out of her staring when she saw Ranma climbing back up onto the flat plateau they were on.  
"Hey, Ryoga," Ranma said, "So, how do you expect we get back?"  
Ryoga turned his attention toward Ranma and said, "I dunno. The only way back that I know of was through the use of that mirror...which was destroyed,"  
Ranma smiled weakly but then realized something, "Hey, how did you manage to get here? I mean, where didja get the mirror? Didn't it break or something?"  
"Well, it turns out that all you could still use it, even if it was broken," Ryoga responded, "Akane and I were in a museum when we saw the mirror. The mirror was one of the things actually recovered somewhat intact after the 'Nerima Massacre'. And, well, we stole it, and I used it to get here,"  
"Then perhaps we could use it to get back," Ranma said, a bit optimistic.  
Ryoga spat back, "Look at it! It's destroyed! How do you expect us to put it back together? I betcha we won't be able to find half of its remains! And it's all your fault!"  
Ranma took a cautious step back, "Now now, Ryoga. Um, it was an accident. I didn't know,"  
"Hmph," Ryoga said, acting forgiving, "Well, what's done is done. There's no way we could salvage it so we might as well try and come up with something to getting back home. Akane's gonna get worried,"  
Ranma said, "Well, we're not in hot water, not yet. We could always visit the Amazon village in China and borrow the nanban mirror from there,"  
Ritsuko looked at Ranma, "China?"  
"Yeah," Ranma replied, "Why?"  
"Um, I'd hate to bring this up, but, ever since the polar ice caps melted due to the Second Impact, China, at least most of it is now underwater," Ritsuko said.  
"What?" Ranma and Ryoga said in unison.  
Ritsuko nodded, "Yeah. Didn't you know that?"  
"No!" Ranma said, his eyes widening. "W-why didn'tja tell me sooner?"  
"Um, Ranma, if I recall correctly, when I asked where you were headed to," Misato began, "You said not to worry about it and changed the subject. Didn't you do the same when Ritsuko here asked you the same question, too?"  
Ranma grabbed a handful of hair, "Damn! What the hell are we gonna do?" For the first time since he arrived, Ranma seemed to be a bit stressed out. It looked like several gray hairs was going to burst form his scalp at any moment.  
"Man, we're stuck here!"

Ranma and the other adults were now assembled in a tiny room somewhere in Nerv headquarters. They were all gathered around a single desk in the middle of the room. Gendo was also in the room, listening carefully. Asuka, Shinji, and Rei were nowhere to be seen.  
Both Ranma and Ryoga looked crestfallen, Ranma looking nowhere near that zestful a person Misato and everyone else had gotten to know over the short time he had been on this world. As to Ryoga, they couldn't tell because he had only arrived a short while ago.  
Ranma was a bit on the depressed side now, after having heard more about the Second Impact and how if had killed billions of people.  
"What the hell are we gonna do?" Ryoga said in exasperation, "I don't wanna stay here for the rest of my life. I wanna go back home..."  
"Hold up," Ranma said, "We're not sunk yet. Ritsuko had mentioned that most of China was underwater. Perhaps the village is still above water,"  
"Well, there could be a chance that it might've survived, provided it was on high enough ground," Misato said, "Heck, we could even locate it via satellite if we knew what we were looking for,"  
Gendo shook his head, "I can't allow that. I can't condone the use of our satellites just to find a single village,"  
"But-" Misato began.  
"No!" Gendo said emphatically, making his point clear and that he would not be argued with.  
Ranma, who haven't really gotten to know Gendo, didn't like him already.  
"We need those satellite to scout for the potential arrivals of Angels," Gendo said in a cold voice.  
"Yeah, but wouldn't it only take an hour or so?" Ranma persisted.  
"Yes, but that one hour could prove fatal for all of mankind," Gendo responded, not wavering, "I would much rather have you not get being able to know whether or not you can go back home than to put all of mankind in danger. You are not as important to us as you think,"  
"Damn, ain't that rather harsh?" Ranma sneered in obvious contempt.  
"There is more at stake than your getting home," Gendo said, his eyes piercing, "I have to look out for all of mankind, not just two people wanting to get back to their own world,"  
"What kinda excuse is that?" Ranma retorted, "If I recall correctly, two Angels have attacked, and both of them attack this city. We will be here to defend it if they do attack,"  
"It doesn't matter," Gendo said, "Even though you're here, I still won't put people in jeopardy over something trivial as to your getting back home,"  
"Trivial?" Ryoga said, anger rising in his voice, "What are you talking about? What makes you say our getting home is trivial?" He emphasized the last word by hitting his hand on the table. Unfortunately, not knowing his strength, Ryoga accidentally broke the table. "Ahem, sorry about that. I didn't mean it. It's just that I was angry," he apologized, obviously sincere. Gendo didn't flinch at the fact that Ryoga had just cracked the table in half. He said, "Yes, your getting home is trivial. There are much more things that matter,"  
Even though he had been through a lot and had changed over the years, Ranma still found himself actually getting angry. "You're Shinji's father, ne?"  
"What does that have to do with it?" Gendo asked, a bit taken aback by the sudden question.  
"I'm glad Shinji ain't here to hear me say this. But you're a dick," Ranma said, "I figured I'd letcha know. Here you are, Shinji's father, and you treat him like trash. Although he never clearly says it, I can surmise by the way he talks about you. If I were Shinji, I'd punch your lights out. And after that, I'll start kicking you in the ribs while you were unconscious,"  
"Is that supposed to be a threat?" Gendo said. He could almost feel his blood boiling. How dare he makes those kind of assumptions about him when he didn't even know him.  
"No, it's not a threat," Ranma retorted, "I'm just stating that you're a dick. You could help us out by doing one simple thing, but you refuse to do so. I dunno what's with you and that cold-ass attitude of yours, but it's getting annoying. You should go see a doctor and have 'im remove that stick outta your ass. Jeez, what made you become like this? Huh?"  
Gendo found himself clenching his jaws, the muscles of his forearms tightening as he made fists.  
"What happened? Did your wife get killed? Did you lose your family?" Ranma persisted.  
Misato and Ritsuko almost took a step back, a bit scared.  
Gendo said nothing. He continued to look at Ranma with a critical eye, as if looking right through him.  
"Well, if it's any of that, that's a rather stupid reason to act like that. Me, I've lost my whole family. Everyone. I was even there to see 'em die. I held 'em as they died in my arms. And, still, I don't act like some kinda dick with a stick up his ass."  
"And what makes you think you're not?"  
Ranma sighed, "Hello? Anybody home? You treat your son like shit. At least I have the heart to be nice to people. You, on the other hand, I would never treat nice. I don't think there's anybody I ever came across that I disliked more than you,"  
Ranma turned around and started to leave.  
"Where are you going? I'm not through with you!" Gendo said, gritting his teeth.  
"So? Like I'm gonna listen to anyway," Ranma said, "I don't wanna stay here and talk to you," He looked at Ryoga, "Hey, Ryoga, since this bastard over here won't help us, it looks like we're stuck trekking down to China to see if the damn place still exists. If you wanna stay, fine, but I'm gonna leave with or without you,"  
Ryoga looked at Misato and then at Ritsuko. When his eyes rested on Gendo, Ryoga sneered a bit, knowing that Ranma was right, and that Gendo was, as Ranma put it, 'a dick'. "Well, I'm gonna go. It was nice knowing you," Ryoga said, more to Misato and Ritsuko than Gendo. Actually, it was exclusively toward the two lovely ladies.  
Ranma and Ryoga exited the room and out into a long corridor.  
Sitting on a bench were Asuka, Rei, and Shinji. They seemed to have been waiting for the new arrival to emerge from the room so they could ask some questions.  
Asuka was the first to notice Ranma and Ryoga. She got off her seat and walked over to Ryoga.  
"H-hi, I'm Asuka," she said a bit nervously. She seemed to be eyeing him quite fondly, totally ignoring Ranma who was standing right next to him.  
Ryoga smiled politely, "Hello, I'm Ryoga,"  
Ranma gestured toward Rei and Shinji whom had just gotten off their seats and walked up to them. He said, "That's Shinji. And she's Rei. They're the ones who pilot those big robots you saw while in the helicopter ride to this place,"  
"You three look awfully young to be pilots," Ryoga commented.  
"Well, we, especially me, are gifted children that are capable of piloting those machines," Asuka said proudly. "So, Ryoga, tell me more about yourself,"  
Ranma smirked. He could clearly see that Asuka seemed to have developed a crush on the Eternally Lost Boy. But then again, she might be doing that just to get back at Ranma. He wondered if he should tell Asuka that Ryoga was also the same age as him. He chose against it. For a change, she actually didn't make some cruel comment about him or tease him, so he could at least do the same.  
All of a sudden, a wailing alarm echoed through the base.  
"Damn!" Asuka swore, "Not again!"  
"What is it?" Ranma asked curiously. He had never heard an alarm go off while he had been in Nerv.  
Shinji answered for Asuka, "That's the alarm. It signals that an Angel is about to land,"  
Ryoga looked at Shinji "An Angel? What's that?"  
"Well, Ryoga, it's basically and alien bent on destroying this world," Ranma said, matter-of-factly, "Shinji, Asuka, and Rei pilot the robots that fight 'em," "What?" Ryoga's eyes widened, "W-what kinda world is this?"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Don't worry, it doesn't happen all that often. I've only seen two of 'em since I arrived,"  
"Actually, that's a lot," Shinji corrected, "Usually, Angel's don't come between intervals of several months. They've been coming more frequently for some reason,"  
Ranma was a bit shocked "Really? Wow, I never knew that. D-do you think our being here might have something like that?"  
"I don't know," Shinji said. He assumed not though.  
"Um, you want us to stay?" Ranma asked, "I mean, we, um, kinda had an argument with your...father and we feel it's about time we leave,"  
"I think it would be better that you stay," Misato said as she walked by Ranma. She turned toward the children, "You guys know what to do,"  
The children nodded and then rushed off down the corridor.  
"Where're they going?" Ryoga asked, confused.  
Misato looked at Ryoga, "They're going to the EVAs, those big robots you see. They have to get ready to battle the Angel."  
"W-we can't let them d-do that!" Ryoga said emphatically, "T-they're so young! They'll get hurt!"  
Ranma looked at Ryoga and then back at Misato, "We'll stay and help, just in case. But after this, we're gonna leave. It's about time we try and find a way back home, especially me. I've been here for quite a while. I miss...my own world,"  
"Well, I'm grateful you're staying," Misato said, "We could use all the help we can get,"  
With that said, Misato rushed down the corridor.

Ryoga and Ranma stood on top of what remained of Tokyo-3's highest building. Although a good chunk of the top part of the building had been destroyed, it was still the highest structure in the city.  
"So what do we do?" Ryoga asked.  
"We sit here and wait for these Angel thingies to attack," Ranma answered, "And we, I guess, provide support for those EVA pilots,"  
"Is there anything else?" Ryoga asked.  
"Not really except after you damage those Angels enough, they have this tendency to explode, and, well, you don't wanna be nearby when it does," Ranma said, remembering what had happened to him when that first Angel he fought had self destructed. God, that hurt.  
A short moment of silence ensued.  
Wanting to keep some form of communications between the two of them, Ranma said in a somewhat eager voice, "Guess what?"  
"What?" Ryoga said, exasperated, "I don't like guessin' games,"  
"All right, I'll tell ya," Ranma said, "I developed a new technique,"  
"Oh?" that seemed to pique Ryoga's interest, "Like what kinda technique?"  
"I dunno,"  
"Bah, then why the hell are ya talking to me then?"  
Ranma said, "Ryoga, I don't really know what kinda technique it exactly is, but I do know it's very very strong,"  
"So? So is a seppukku blast," Ryoga said, unimpressed.  
"You've got a point there, but it's still very strong," Ranma said, "I betcha if I worked at it harder, it'll be stronger than a seppukku blast,"  
"You're kidding me, right?" Ryoga sounded dubious.  
"I'm not kidding," Ranma persisted.  
"Fine, what is it? Maybe I could do it also?"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Well, I guess since it's purely ki-based, you would probably be able to do it also. Anyway, it's basically a very very strong punch,"  
"Bah, who cares. I have a very strong punch as it is," Ryoga said, wondering why he was having this conversation in the first place.  
Ranma turned his attention away from Ryoga and saw a beam of light shooting down from the heavens by the outskirts of the city.  
"Um, I'll talk to ya 'bout that later," Ranma said. He pointed toward that beam of light, "You see that light there, that's where the Angel's gonna land. C'mon, let's make our way toward it,"  
"Huh? How do you expect we do that?" Ryoga asked, "I mean, we're a good, what, three miles away,"  
Ranma shook his head in disgust, "You're so lazy, Ryoga. How else do ya think we get there? We hop from building to building, like the good ol' days,"  
Ranma leapt off the building and landed on the roof of the building below. From there, he continued to hop from rooftop to rooftop, slowly making his way toward the Angel. Ryoga shrugged his shoulders. Seeing that Ranma already had a head start, Ryoga made a running jump right off the building's roof. Due to the extreme height, Ryoga managed to land right by Ranma's side as they continued to make their way through the city.  
"Man, that's one weird lookin' Angel," Ranma commented. He and Ryoga were about a hundred of so meters away from the Angel, which looked a lot like a cross between a giant turtle and a hamster with ribbon like arms and a puny face "Hey, it looks like some kinda gerbil," he chuckled. Ryoga was not amused.  
The Angel was now within city limits.  
"Um, you think we should be this close to it?" Ryoga asked, "I mean, didn't you say this thing'll blow up?"  
Ranma nodded, "Yes, it will, but what else could we do?"  
"Um, we could always use a ki-blast from a distance," Ryoga said mockingly.  
"Yeah, and risk hitting one of these buildings?" Ranma replied, "Also, we can't just shoot a ki-blast right at it. We might hit one of the robots, I mean EVAs,"  
Ryoga shrugged his shoulders, "How come those kids are fighting it? Wouldn't it just be better for them to let us pick it off from a distance?"  
Ranma watched the battle. All three EVAs were currently trying to physically force the Angel out of the city. They didn't want to risk the Angel self-destructing again and taking down many many buildings along with it, not after what had happened last time.  
"From what I see," Ranma answered, "It looks like they're trying to wrestle the damn thing and push it outta the city. Oh, I get it. They don't want it blowin' up and killing a buncha people," "That sounds like a good plan," Ryoga said, "But what do we do once they get that alien...um...Angel outta the city?"  
"What else, we shoot it many many times with our ki-blasts," he said with a ear-to-ear grin. He looked like a little kid.  
"I have a question," Ryoga asked after a few moments of watch the battle, "Exactly why are they fightin' in hand-to-hand combat? I mean, wouldn't it be better to just shoot it with a missile or something?"  
Ranma shook his head, "No. I saw an Angel get hit with a missile and it seems to bounce right off. It seems conventional weapons don't faze it. Misato had mentioned some kinda force field that surrounds it called an AT field. It's our job to get ridda that force field when we have the chance,"  
He looked up just in time to see the Angel use one of its ribbon-like appendages to swat an EVA away. Unit-01 went flying bodily into a nearby building, the building collapsing down under the impact. Ranma and Ryoga went running for cover as debris rained down on them. A large slab of concrete had actually hit Ranma, but Ranma didn't seem to have noticed it.  
"Jeez, they're gonna do more damage to the city than the Angel," Ranma commented as he ran away from yet another crumbling building as Unit-00 was sent bodily into it.  
"Damn, this thing is tough!" Asuka commented, gritting her teeth. She was having quite a bit of trouble battling this Angel, even with the help of Rei and Shinji. But then again, she figured, even if they were helping, they wouldn't be that great of help anyway. "Hey," Ranma shouted out and up toward Asuka's EVA. He didn't have a headset on.  
Asuka looked down at Ranma.  
"What the hell do you want?" her voice came from an external speaker.  
"Why dontcha just get the thing to follow ya?" Ranma shouted out, "We'll pick it off once it's outta city limits,"  
Asuka was about to shout something back but was stopped when the Angel struck her EVA with one of its appendages, knocking it into a nearby building.  
"Jeez, that thing must be strong," Ranma commented, ducking for cover from all the falling debris.  
"How dare you?" Ryoga said, glowing with rage, "How dare you distract one of those kids and actually let 'em get hit! It's all your fault!" Without thinking of the consequence of his actions, Ryoga charged Ranma had grabbed him by his shirt collar, "You wanna find out how strong that thing is? Why dontcha take a closer look?"  
Ryoga threw him over his shoulder, sending Ranma flying right into the Angel. Ranma shouted in shock at what had just happened, only to get slapped right out of mid-flight and sent bodily right into a nearby building.  
In that short battle, four buildings had just been destroyed or seriously damaged.  
Ryoga looked up at the massive Angel as it slowly made its way straight toward him, seemingly hovering. He took a cautious step backward. God, that thing was big. The Angel, within attacking distance, used one of its appendages at lashed out at him, missing him by mere inches if it weren't for the fact that Ryoga had leapt out of the way in the nick of time. The ground was torn through like a hot blade slicing through butter.  
Ryoga rolled onto his feet and lunged at the Angel, punching its extended appendage as it slowly retracted it to pull it back out of the ground. It had no effect.  
"What the?" Ryoga's eyes widened. Ryoga was in a state of shock as the Angel reared one of its appendages to attack again.  
Luckily for Ryoga, a ki-blast slammed into his side, sending him flying right into building.  
Ranma, slightly bruised, stepped out through the hole his ki-blast had shot out of and hit into Ryoga. He had this sneer on his face, "Ryoga, ya idiot! You can't hurt the damn thing through conventional means like punching, you need to use something like this! Hiryu Shoten Ha!"  
Ranma punched toward the sky as he let loose a massive whirlwind blast, torrent winds erupting from his upward extended fist. In an instant, the blast expanded, expanding outward, engulfing Ranma, and then going upward, engulfing the hovering Angel from below.  
Asuka, Rei, and Shinji, who were slowly making their respective EVAs get back up, caught sight of the Angel as it was engulfed in a massive column of wind. While the Angel was being send spiraling up into the sky, Ranma let loose his ki-blast, "Mouko Takabisha!"  
The pilots watched in absolute shock as they saw a ball of energy erupt from Ranma's hands, rocketing upwards and striking the Angel from below. They heard Angel make a noise, as if it were some kind of shriek of pain as it this red sphere surrounding it flared bright red and then shattered like color stained glass.  
"The AT field's been destroyed!" Misato's voice entered the pilots' cockpits, "The AT field's down! Now's your chance to stop it!"  
Asuka was the first to respond, making her EVA run forward toward the Angel, punching it with every energy Unit-02 could muster, the power cable attached to the EVA back nearly short circuiting from the extreme drain in power. The impact of Unit-02's fist with what seemed like the Angel's torso sent the Angel flying away from the city limits, sent through the air at intense speeds, the Angel slamming into a mountain. It struck the mountain with such force that it became embedded in it.  
Asuka, not wasting a second, made Unit-02 run to the nearest armament building, and then quickly pulled out a high caliber assault rifle. Bracing the EVA's back against a building, she aimed the rifle toward the Angel and fired several rounds at it. The kickback of the rifle was so intense that the building behind Unit-02 slowly start to shudder and crack for the EVA's back had been braced against it.  
Every single round struck its intended target, ravaging it. By the time the nine round sliced into the Angel's body, the Angel, knowing it was done for, made itself self-destruct.  
"All right!" Asuka shouted in confidence as she watched a massive mushroom emerge by the mountains and up into the dark sky. She could hear several people also cheer from within her cockpit, leading her to realize that Misato and the others have witnessed the Angel's destruction.  
Several hours had passed since the battle. Ranma and Ryoga were once again gathered somewhere in Nerv Headquarters. They, along with Misato and Ritsuko, were back in that same room where Ryoga had accidentally broken that table, except this time, Gendo wasn't there.  
"I don't get it," Ranma asked, "Why do ya want us back here? We're gonna go on over toward China and we'll be outta your hair,"  
"That's the thing," Misato said, sounding very professional, "We don't want you out of our hair. We want you to stay,"  
Ranma sighed, "I'm sorry. As much as I'd like to stay and help, I want to go back home,"  
Ritsuko said, "Can't you reconsider?"  
"Well, yeah. I mean, I could stay for as long as I want," Ranma said, "But it's just that I want to leave,"  
"Why?"  
"I have people back in my own world waiting for me. That's a good enough reason," Ranma answered her. He got up off his feet and added, "Look, I do want to stay, but I also wanna leave. I've been here for a while already. People are gonna miss be back home,"  
"Not me," Ryoga said wryly, "I wouldn't miss you,"  
Ranma ignored him and continued on, "Look, I would have stayed to teach the kids how to manipulate ki, but it'll be useless because they're needed to pilot those EVA thingies,"  
"Then let us learn it," Misato said quickly.  
"Eh?" Ranma looked a bit confused, "You wanna learn it now? What gives?"  
"We need all the help we can get, that's why,"  
Ranma nodded a bit in acknowledgement, "Well, I can't really argue There," He chuckled a bit, hoping to lighten the situation so it wouldn't seem too offensive, "Anyway, here's the dilemma. I'm here. So is Ryoga. Both of us have friends back on our own world waiting for us. After a while, they're gonna get worried. Now, if there is a way to perhaps let them know that Ryoga and I are okay, then I wouldn't mind staying a few days to do some more demonstrations...even though that last one almost killed me,"  
"How about we help you find that thing you're looking for in China?" Ritsuko offered.  
Ranma shook his head, "I doubt you would come with us all the way to China. We plan on swimming there,"  
"S-swim?" Ritsuko and Misato said in unison, shock in both of their voices.  
Ranma nodded, "Yeah, both of us have swum from Japan to China when we were young. Not to brag, but we're in pretty good shape,"  
"Not to brag?" Misato smirked, "What's with the sudden sense of modesty, eh?"  
"Anyway," Ranma said, "We're going to trek all the way there on foot. No offense, but I don't think you girls are remotely up to doing something like that. Besides, you hafta stay behind and help out in case another one of the Angels attack,"  
Ritsuko and Misato were silent.  
"It'll probably take a month or so just to get there, but we'll get there eventually," Ranma said, "I don't really enjoy the thought of having to remain here for around a month before we can get back, but, the sooner we leave now, the sooner we'll get home. But then again, it probably would be a lot quicker and easier if that dick, Gendo, would use a satellite to locate the village. As of right now, we'll be going to an area we have no idea if it's under water or not," Ranma clenched his hands, "It'll be so much easier to do it that way, but, since Gendo seems hell-bent on not helping us out, we'll have to do this on our Own,"  
Misato sighed. She wished she had a plan. "All right, but can you please do us one favor?" she finally said.  
"What is it?"  
"Can you please stay for just a day or so? Just a few more demonstrations," she pleaded, "Before you leave,"  
Ranma thought about it for a moment. Although he intended to leave tonight, he figured it wouldn't really hurt to stay another day. He nodded, "Well, I guess we could stay another day or so. But I'm only doing this because I wanna help you guys out as much as I can. But, don't forget, I have other things to worry about. I can't just stay here and play defender. I have friends to get back to,"  
Ryoga said, "Yes, same here. We both have people who'll be waitin' for us back home,"  
"So you're going to stay, right?" Ritsuko asked.  
"Yeah,"  
Misato and Ritsuko almost cheered in relief. Luckily, both of them managed to keep from doing so before they embarrassed themselves.  
Ryoga's stomach grumbled.  
Ranma turned toward him, "You haven't eaten yet, huh?"  
"Nope. And I'm starving,"  
Ranma reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. Misato and Ritsuko's eyes widened.  
"W-where did you get so much money?" Misato asked. She wondered how many beer cans she could buy with that much money.  
"Well, I woke up early this morning, and I was pretty hungry," Ranma said, "Since I had nothing to do, I went out looking for a job. I was looking around for some dojos, hoping I could teach as a martial arts teacher. Anyway, as I was walking down the street, I guess I walked in front of a modeling agency and someone saw me. They walked up to me and offered me a job as a model right there. They took me in, gave me some, um, underwear to wear, and took pictures of me. After the job, they gave me a wad of cash. I didn't really like doing it, but hey, it's money. It's better getting money than, say, robbing a bank,"  
"Or Genom for that matter," Ryoga added smartly.  
Ranma chuckled a bit, "Anyway, that's how I got the money. Shortly after the...what did they call it...model shoot, I went over to the kids' school where we met,"  
"Y-you did an underwear ad?" Misato's eyes were a bit wide. She smirked and said in a rather teasingly way, "Well, after having seen you naked, I wouldn't be surprised,"  
Ryoga's aura flared, "What?" He turned toward Ranma, "Ranma, how dare you sleep with another-"  
Ranma kicked Ryoga in the chest, sending him flying into a nearby wall where he became embedded in it, "Quit jumpin' to conclusions ya moron!"  
"How dare you hit me! I'll kill you!" Ryoga charged Ranma and kicked him in the chest, sending Ranma, this time, flying into the wall.  
Ranma casually brushed off the debris. He looked at the stunned Misato and Ritsuko, "Don't worry. We do this all the time,"  
He placed a wad of cash on the broken table, "I guess this should pay for the damage,"  
Misato was the first to compose herself, "Um, what are you going to do now?"  
Ranma's stomach grumbled and he said, "What else, I'm gonna go eat," He looked at Ryoga and gave him an evil grin, "Ryoga could go buy his own food. That's what he gets for hitting me,"  
"You hit me first!"  
Ranma ignored Ryoga. He turned toward Misato, "Yo, Misato, ya want me stopping by tonight?"  
Misato blushed beet red. Her heart started racing.  
Ranma noticed this and immediately realized what she was thinking about. He said, "Get your mind outta the gutter. I'm not talking about that. I could stop by tonight and show Shinji more about ki. That is if you don't mind,"  
"N-no, not at all. I don't mind," Misato said quickly, a bit angry at herself after she realized how eager it sounded. "Well, then it's settled, I'll stop by later. First, I'm gonna go out and get some food," he commented.  
"Would you like me to come along?" Misato offered.  
"You can't," Ritsuko said, "We still have some extra work here left to do,"  
Misato pouted. She would have really liked to have gone to dinner with Ranma and Ryoga.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Well, perhaps another time," He turned toward Ryoga, "Come, let's go get something to eat. I'm starving,"  
Misato and Ritsuko stared at the two figures as they disappeared around the corner. Misato said, "Um, aren't they supposed to hate each other?"

Misato was in her bedroom when she heard a knock at her front door. Her heart skipped a beat. She knew it would be Ranma and Ryoga. "Who's that?" Shinji asked. He had been trying to do some homework on the messy coffee table. He looked at the clock. It was close to ten now. He wondered who could be stopping by at a time like that.  
"Well, why dontcha go find out?" Asuka said, not even glancing up from her manga. She had already done her homework.  
Shinji gave Asuka a pensive glance before he got up to answer the door. When he opened the door, he was surprised to see Ranma.  
"R-Ranma-san, w-what are you doing here?" he asked.  
"What? Ranma's here? What the hell's he doing here?" Asuka's voice shot out. She glanced up from her manga, her eyes resting on the man she despised.  
Ranma smiled at Shinji and said, "I came here to teach you some more about ki, if you don't mind that is. You seemed very interested in my demonstrations so I figured I'd drop on by and show you some more," "T-that'll be g-great! I'd love that!" Shinji said, his eyes lighting up, "Please, come on in,"  
Ranma did as he was told. Stepping inside, he was a bit surprised to see the place was a bit cleaner. It still had some things strewn about, but not as ostentatiously. He entered the livingroom when he saw Asuka, who had gotten up. She was clad in casual attire consisting of short cut off jeans and a tank top. She had her hands on her slender hips, one of her hands holding the manga, as she glared at him.  
"What are you doing here?" she asked contemptuously.  
Ranma smiled and said, "Hello, Asuka. How're you doing?"  
"Just fine until you showed up!"  
Ranma found it very hard to learn to like this annoying little girl. Every single time he had tried to be nice, she would say something insulting toward him. He turned toward Shinji, "You should tell Misato I'm here,"  
Shinji nodded and left the room, leaving only Asuka and Ranma.  
Ranma walked over past Asuka and sat down on the couch, having to brush aside one of Shinji's school books, "Well, Asuka, it looks like it's just you and me," He said with a joking smile. "Which is very unfortunate for me," she muttered back, still glaring. "What the hell are you doing here in the first place?"  
"I came here to teach Shinji some more about ki," Ranma replied. He picked up one of Shinji's books. Economics. He smirked a bit and then chuckled.  
"What's so funny?" Asuka asked, noticing Ranma's smirking.  
"Well, this economics book," Ranma replied patiently, "I remember because of something I did back in my own world, when I revealed how corrupted this megacorporation was, the entire world plunged into economic chaos."  
"Whoopee do," Asuka was unimpressed.  
"Hey, you were the one who asked," Ranma retorted. He reached over and picked up another textbook. History. His face sullied as he wonder if the 'Nerima Massacre' would be in the history books back on his homeworld. Most likely. "Heh, considering how old you are, you should be in that history book," Asuka commented, "Under ancient history,"  
Ranma chuckled a bit, pushing his pain somewhere where it wouldn't bother him. He looked up at Asuka. He was about to say something until Shinji and Misato entered back into the livingroom.  
Misato glanced around and noticed Ranma was the only one here, "Um, where's Ryoga?"  
"R-Ryoga? Ryoga was supposed to stop by?" Asuka said, her voice a bit eager.  
Ranma noticed the color rising in her cheeks and smirked. He then turned toward Misato and shrugged his shoulders and said, "He got lost,"  
"Lost?"  
"Yep," Ranma said, matter-of-factly, "He has a bad sense of direction. He said he wanted to go to the bathroom to wash his face, and, well, I never saw him again."  
"Why didn't you wait for him?" Misato asked.  
Ranma said, "Half an hour. After that, I paid for the meal and left. Don't worry about him, he could definitely take care of himself. It's just that he has this horrible sense of direction,"  
"It can't be that bad?" Misato asked.  
Ranma nodded, "Oh yeah, it's bad. Once, he had this map, and he was supposed to go east, and he went west,"  
"What's wrong with that?" Misato said, "I mean, sometimes I forget which direction to go when asked to go east or west,"  
"That's true," Ranma said, smirking, "But there's one thing I didn't mention. The sun was setting right behind him,"  
Misato was silent. That was definitely a bad sense of direction.  
"Don't worry, we'll bump into him sooner or later," Ranma said with a casual smile, "He's bound to be around the area,"  
"I'll go look for him," Asuka said quickly.  
Ranma smiled at her. He was about to say something embarrassing but chose against it. It seems she had a crush on him. He found it rather cute.  
Ranma turned toward her, "It's kinda hard finding him, y'know. It's better to just sit here and let him find you,"  
"I don't need your help!" she spat.  
Ranma gave Asuka a hard look. "Fine, go ahead. Have a ball looking for him," Ranma said. He turned toward Shinji and said, "Where would ya like to go learn? It's good if we stay in an open area. We don't wanna accidentally blow up a building or something," He chuckled a bit, jokingly.  
"Um, does Ryoga know where you're going to be?" Misato asked.  
"Yeah, I gave him your card so he has your address," Ranma answered, "So, if you're lucky, he might actually show up sometime this century. He has the tendency of showing up at odd times,"  
"All right, I guess I'll stay here and wait for him, in case he shows up," Misato offered.  
"No!" Asuka shouted. She quickly calmed herself down a bit and said in a soft voice, "Um, you can go with Ranma and Shinji. I'll stay behind and wait for him, in case he shows up,"  
Ranma smiled. God, he could just rip her apart right here and embarrass the hell out of her. Does she have any idea of just how easily she was showing her crush toward Ryoga? He could crush her by simply telling her that Ryoga and he were the same age.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, Misato, y'wanna come along?"  
Misato thought about it for a moment and then said, "Nah, you go on ahead. I'll stay here and wait, just in case. Just make sure you get Shinji home a bit early. I mean, he does have school, afterall,"  
Ranma smiled and said in an innocent child-like voice "All right, I'll have Shinji home in time for bed," Ranma and Shinji both entered Misato's apartment at around midnight. Shinji was slumped over Shinji's shoulder, dead asleep.  
Misato, when she saw Shinji like that, rushed up to the two of them, a worried look on his face.  
Ranma wanting to tease her, pretended he was on the verge of tears.  
"W-what happened?" she asked "What happened to Shinji?"  
Ranma looked at the ground, not daring to look in her worried eyes, "S-Shinji...Shinji got hurt."  
"W-what? H-how did he get hurt?"  
Ranma looked up and smiled, "Nah, he's fine. I was jus' joking around. He's just pooped and fell asleep. I offered to carry him home. That's all."  
Misato sighed in relief, "T-thank goodness,"  
She then realized something. This entire joke had been at her expense. She glared at Ranma, who was now looking at her with a grin on his face, "That wasn't funny, y'know!"  
"Did Ryoga show up?" Ranma said, changing the subject.  
"Um, no, he didn't," "Asuka must be upset," Ranma said to himself.  
"What?"  
"Um, nevermind," he said quickly. He walked passed Misato, "Where's Shinji's room?"  
"Around the corner,"  
Ranma walked passed the livingroom and noticed Asuka was still in there, reading something. She must be still eagerly waiting for Ryoga. He shrugged his shoulder and walked over to Shinji's bedroom door, opened it, and entered his room, emerging from it without Shinji a short moment later.  
Misato walked up to Ranma and said, "Um, would you like some coffee?"  
Ranma shook his head, "No thank you,"  
"How did Shinji do?"  
"He did pretty well," Ranma answered, "He's coming along fine. Like everyone else, it'll take a long long time for him to perfect it, but given the time, he'll get better and better. Afterall, practice makes perfect,"  
"I wasn't expecting to see him so, pooped out," she commented, "I mean, I figure Shinji would be filled with energy, pun intended, and life at the thought of learning something like that,"  
Ranma smiled warmly at the joke. He then said, "Well, you could only take so much before you get tired. Me, I used to get tired doing this stuff. Afterall, using one's ki is also using one's own energy,"  
"I guess you have a point," she agreed.  
Ranma yawned.  
"You're tired," she said. It was a statement, not a question.  
He nodded, "Yeah. I'm as pooped as Shinji," He sighed, "Man, and I've gotta find a hotel room tonight,"  
"Um, er, you're welcome to stay here for the night if you'd like," Misato offered, her voice very nervous. She wondered if her knees were physically shaking right now.  
Ranma thought about it for a moment. That didn't seem to be all that bad an idea, "Um, but where would I be sleeping?"  
I could think of one place. "Um, you could sleep on the couch," Misato said, glad that Ranma can't read minds.  
After a short moment, Ranma agreed, "Okay, I guess that could work," He rubbed his neck, "May I use your shower?"  
"Huh?"  
"May I use your shower?" Ranma repeated, "I really wanna take a shower. After that incident a short while ago where that Angel swatted me into a building, my muscles feel like they're in knots. I just wanna relax a bit. It'll help relieve some stress, "  
There are better ways of relieving stress, a licentious thought entered Misato's mind. She almost cursed at herself for thinking of something like that. But then again, she was female, Ranma was male...and a very handsome one to boot.  
"Um, er, sure, go right ahead," Misato said, "T-the shower is just down the hall. There are extra towels on the towel rack," She walked over to the linen closet and produced a spare bathrobe, "Here, you can use this bathrobe,"  
"Thanks. I really appreciate it," Ranma said warmly, which made Misato acutely aware of his eyes looking into hers.  
He walked down the hallway and entered the bathroom.  
When Ranma disappeared into the bathroom, Misato realized something.  
"Pen-pen's still in there,"  
Ranma closed the bathroom door behind him. His eyes immediately widened as he caught sight of Misato's unmentionables strewn about. Her panties were on the shower rack, her bras on the sink, her stockings on the floor.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulder, "Where she puts her stuff is her business," He casually picked up, and he couldn't help but comment on the fabric of Misato's panties "Ooh, silk. If I were some hentai I would probably be really turned on right now,"  
He picked up Misato's unmentionables and placed them in a neat pile on the sink. After that, he removed his clothes, casually throwing them in the corner of the room, and walked over to the bathtub. It was odd that Ranma hadn't noticed before, but the bathroom was currently being occupied.  
When he pushed aside the curtain, he saw a penguin lying in the middle of the tub. In any situation, Ranma would have probably freaked out and went running from the room. But over the years, he had been through quite a bit, and he didn't get spooked as easily anymore.  
Meanwhile, Misato was laughing inwardly, waiting to see Ranma come running from the bathroom. She knew Pen-Pen was in there. It had happened to Shinji when he first arrived, and she was pretty sure it would also happen to Ranma. The bathroom door opened and out strolled Ranma, a towel clad around his waist. He was holding Pen-Pen in one hand, Misato's unmentionables in another. Misato's mouth nearly dropped to the ground as Ranma, without saying a word, casually walked up to her and handed her her things, placing Pen-  
Pen on her lap. "I assume these are yours," Ranma said with a smirk, only to turn back and go back into the bathroom.  
For several long moments, even after the sound of the shower had begun, Misato stared at the door Ranma had disappeared through. She had been expecting to see Ranma come running stark naked out of the bathroom, but instead, he looked rather amused as he handed her her things, not at all perturbed at seeing a penguin in the bathroom.  
Asuka emerged from the livingroom. She sighed, "I guess Ryoga isn't going to show up," She walked over to the fridge and got herself a soda pop and then glanced over at Misato for a short moment, "What's wrong?"  
It took several moments before Misato composed herself, "Oh nothing. It's just that I was expecting to play a joke on Ranma but I guess the joke backfired,"  
Asuka shook her head, "What kinda joke? You mean sending Ranma into the bathroom while that damn penguin was in there? Lettme guess you probably wanted to see Ranma naked or something. I think that's gross. He's an old geezer..."  
Ranma emerged from his bathroom. He was in his bathrobe, which was partially opened at the front. He was drying his hair when he said, "Hey, who're you calling an old geezer?"  
"Guess,"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "You like Shinji,"  
"What?"  
Now it was Ranma's turn to do the teasing, "You heard what I said. You like Shinji. I betcha you liked him ever since you first laid eyes on him,"  
Asuka's face twitched slightly, "No, I don't! I hate him! He's such a wimp!"  
"You don't like him?"  
"Of course not! I hate him!" Asuka said vehemently, her fists clenching.  
"Oh, are you one of those girls that like other girls?" Ranma was smirking. He was wondering if Asuka could see it. Probably not since she was in a furious state of mind at the moment. All she was probably seeing was red.  
"No!"  
Ranma turned toward Misato, "Hey, Misato, does Asuka slip into your bed late at night?"  
"What?" Misato shouted, stunned that Ranma would asked something like that. She had been silently giggling to herself as Ranma teased Asuka, but hadn't expected the teasing to move onto her.  
Ranma was clearly enjoying this. After many years of constant torture via dialogue from Nabiki when he had been young, Ranma had finally learned to do battle not only with his fists but with speech. "W-what, are you jealous?" Asuka said, trying her best to man an offence. She had to fight back somehow.  
Ranma nodded, a fake glint in his eyes "Of course I'm jealous. I'm jealous of Misato. Dontcha know that I'm in love with you, Asuka? And Misato has you all to herself, it tears me apart!" Ranma made an exaggerated motion as if his heart was breaking, "I could feel my heart shattering into a million pieces every time I see you two together,"  
"All right, Ranma! That's enough teasing!" Misato said, doing her best to be commanding. She didn't like being teased, even if it had been indirectly. She didn't mind Ranma teasing Asuka, but drew the line when Ranma brought her into it.  
Asuka gave Ranma an look that would probably haunt a man to his death, "I hate you,"  
"So?"  
Asuka gritted her teeth. She wanted to hit this guy that her blood Boiled, "You're an asshole,"  
"So?"  
Asuka, in a fit of frustration and loathing toward Ranma, brought her hand up and tried to slap him, only to have Ranma skillfully catch it with his own hand. When she tried to slap him with her other hand, he caught that one also.  
"Man, I hope when I finally decide to have children, they're not as nasty as you, Asuka," he commented. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire. Asuka was already burning with rage and Ranma continued to provoke her.  
"Who in their right mind would ever wanna marry some obnoxious jerk like you?" Asuka retorted.  
Ranma smiled.  
Misato said, "All right, Ranma. That's enough with the teasing. She won't hit you," she looked toward Asuka, "Now will she?"  
Asuka gritted her teeth.  
"I despise you!" she said, her eyes almost glowing with hatred.  
Ranma let go of Asuka's hands. He tightened his bathrobe belt, making sure to close the partially opened front, and said, "So?"  
With that said, Ranma turned around and went to the livingroom.  
"What he hell are you doing?" Asuka asked.  
"I'm gonna go to sleep," Ranma responded, sitting down on the couch. The front of his robe opened, revealing his muscular chest. A quick blush came to Asuka's cheeks as she noticed it. Ranma laid on his side down on the couch, his back toward her.  
Asuka turned toward Misato, who was watching this with a bit of amusement in her eyes, "Misato, how on Earth can you let him stay here of all places?"  
Misato shrugged her shoulders, a smile on her lips. "Hey, this is my place. I think I'm entitled to as I please,"  
Misato looked down at Ranma. He was still asleep on the couch.  
It was around nine in the morning, the two kids having gone off to school.  
"Ranma," she said softly, almost seductively.  
Ranma stirred a bit. He opened his eyes and sat upright, his elbows on his knees, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The front part of his bathrobe was wide open, exposing a good portion of his tightly defined abs and chest. Misato was almost holding her breath, daring not to stare. Her heart was racing and she found her blood beginning to boil. She should had never had let Ranma sleep here. She had had little or no sleep, the thought of Ranma sleeping in the livingroom just outside her bedroom had left her twisting and turning in her own bed.  
"Hey, Misato," Ranma said sleepily, "W-what time is it?"  
"It's nine, I have to leave for work now," she said.  
Ranma got up and said, "All right. I'll get going," He looked around, "W-where's my clothes?"  
"They're in the washing machine," Misato said, "Shinji was doing the wash today and he accidentally took your clothes. You're gonna hafta wait a while before they're dry,"  
Ranma sighed, "So what am I gonna do?"  
"Um, you can stay here and wait for it to finish," she said "Y-you could let yourself out when you're done. Just make sure you lock the door,"  
Ranma smirked, "You seem to trust me,"  
"Why shouldn't I?"  
Asuka entered Misato's apartment. God, sometimes she wished she didn't have school. Ranma was in the kitchen, busy cooking a meal. She had seen Ranma sleeping on the couch when she had woken up early for school. She was hoping he was gone when she got home.  
"So, what are you burning?" Asuka asked wryly. She never knew Ranma knew how to cook.  
Ranma ignored her.  
"It smells like crap," Asuka commented. She dropped her books off on the couch and entered the kitchen, peering around Ranma at the skillet. He was cooking some eggs and bacon and sausages.  
"Why the hell are you making food like that?" Asuka asked, "Why are you cooking breakfast food in the middle of the day?"  
Ranma turned toward Asuka and said, "Cause I like it. It's not like I'm cooking for you so what do you care?"  
Asuka's eyes creased, "Where'd you learn to cook like that? At the rate you're going, you're going to burn this entire complex down,"  
Ranma turned off the fire and brought the skillet with him to the table. He then proceeded to eat right out of the skillet, nearly devouring the entire meal in a few bites.  
"You have no manners," Asuka commented, noticing how barbaric Ranma was in his eating rituals.  
"What are you, my mother? Jeez," Ranma said as he continued to eat. After a short while, he picked up a sausage, "You want one?"  
"Not on your life," came the quick reply, "It looks disgusting,"  
Her stomach grumbled. Asuka swore to herself. Sure, she was hungry, but she didn't want Ranma to know.  
Ranma smirked, "Judging from that rumbling, you're either hungry or the Third Kanto Earthquake is in process,"  
"Third Kanto Earthquake?"  
"Nothing," Ranma continued to munch down on his food, "It has to do with the world I come from. Anyway, do you want it or not?"  
Asuka looked down her nose at Ranma, "I would never eat something like that,"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "All right. Whatever you say," He ate the sausage and went about eating the rest of the delicious looking food. The food made Asuka's mouth water. She was starving. Her eyes seemed to rest on the food a bit more than it was supposed to.  
"Don't even think about it," Ranma said, "I ain't giving you any. I already offered. If you wanna be stubborn, go right ahead. Sooner or later, you'll realize acting all high and mighty will get you nowhere,"  
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Asuka spat.  
Ranma, finished with his meal, walked over to the kitchen sink where he proceeded to clean the skillet. "You know damn well what I mean," Ranma said, "I don't know what's with that stuck up attitude of yours. It's like it's that time of the month for you except it's every day."  
"What? H-how dare you say something like that!"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Fine. Don't believe me if you don't wanna. I don't really care. I'm just trying to point that out for ya before you make a fool of yourself,"  
"And what makes you think I'll make a fool of myself? Huh?"  
Ranma sighed, "Jeez, I can't believe I'm having this conversation with a little girl."  
"I'm not a little girl!"  
"Yeah, whatever you say, Asuka," Ranma gave a wry reply, "Get over it. You're...well...a bitch. And sooner or-"  
"How dare you say something like that about me!"  
Ranma continued to look at Asuka with a casual eye, "If you're not a bitch, then what are you? Some kinda saint? Well, you're not,"  
Asuka clenched her fist. God, she hated this man, "Why dontcha just go back to where you came from? I wish you would just leave! Everyone will be better off!"  
Ranma remained unperturbed, "Hell yeah, I'm gonna leave. I plan on leaving as soon as possible."  
"The sooner the better!"  
"Dontcha have some homework to do? Go do some little girl things, like shop or play with dolls or whatever the hell girls your age do nowadays," Ranma said, more annoyed than anything else. He headed for the balcony. He needed some fresh air. Asuka followed him outside, "I don't even know why you're here! You don't even belong here! If you're so hell-bent on getting back home, then how come you're here, in Misato's apartment, instead of trying to find a way back? Huh?"  
Ranma gritted his teeth, "Man, you're annoying. Go away. Jeez,"  
"No. I'm not going away," Asuka persisted, "This is my place also. I also live here, too. I could go where ever I please,"  
At that moment, Shinji chose that particular moment to enter the apartment.  
Ranma went back into the apartment to greet Shinji, "Hey, Shinji, what's up?"  
"Um, nothing much," Shinji said meekly, taking his shoes off and putting his books on the couch, "What's going on?" He noticed that Asuka looked more annoyed than ever.  
"It's none of your business, Shinji!" Asuka shouted.  
Ranma sighed, "Hey, Shinji, take care."  
"Huh? Where are you going?"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Spending time alone with Asuka makes me realize just how much I hate this world. I'm leaving,"  
"Yeah, you leave, like the coward you are!"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "I'm the biggest coward in the world. I would run away from any sign of trouble. I can't deal with life, so I run away. I got beat up a lot when I was young so I run away. I would give bullies my lunch money when I was young, just so they won't beat me up. All right. I admit it. I'm a coward. Does that make you happy?"  
"You're only trying to humor me,"  
"First off, I could care less about how you view me," Ranma said, "It seems to bother _you_ more that your comments don't seem to bother me. I've been through a lot over the years that I'm not going to get bothered by something so trivial as that. Yet, here you are, constantly trying to beat it into me. You call me an asshole? Fine. I'm an asshole. So? Why do you go on constantly telling me? Do you think it went in one ear and out the other? I heard you...I just don't really care,"  
That seemed to actually shut Asuka up for a change.  
"Go ahead, tell me I'm stupid," Ranma said, "Tell me it's because I lack a brain and that's why things go in one ear and out the other. Look, I have nothing against you. I see no reason for you to have something against me either. But, if you wanna act like a...brat towards me, fine. Go ahead, but I'm not gonna stand idly by while you make yourself seem so much better than me by defacing me. I'm gonna show you how it feels to be put in your place,"  
Asuka clenched her teeth.  
Ranma took that moment to let it sink in. After a short while, he said, "Look, if you wanna go on playing little miss princess, fine. Go right ahead. Just leave me outta it. I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone. Also, keep in mind, you were the one who walked up to me and started insulting me. I tried to be nice. I even offered you some food, but you kept insulting me and my cooking,"  
"I didn't wanna eat your slop!"  
"There you go again," Ranma said with a sigh, "Well, whatever, I'm going out. I've been cooped up in here for long enough,"  
"Where are you going?" Shinji asked.  
"Dunno," came the reply, "If I'm lucky, it'll be back home. But since it's very doubtful, I'll go out for a little walk. It's a nice day out,"  
Without saying another word, Ranma left the apartment.  
Shinji looked at Asuka. She looked furious. Her fists were clenched as she gazed at the door Ranma had just left. He almost smiled, grateful that someone had finally put Asuka in her place. It was about time she realized she wasn't as high and mighty as she believed, and he was glad it was Ranma who did it.  
But, when Asuka noticed Shinji looking at her, she gave him a nasty look, and said,  
"What the hell are you looking at?"  
Rei caught sight of Ranma, as he her.  
"Oh, Rei, how's everything going?" he said in a casual manner. It was as if the incident he had just left had never happened. Nothing seemed to really bother him.  
Rei didn't answer.  
Ranma regarded Rei for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and turned around, "You want me to leave you alone?"  
"It doesn't matter if you stay or not," came the reply.  
"All right, if you don't really wanna talk to me, I'll leave then," Ranma turned around and left.  
Rei stopped dead in her tracks for a short moment, watching as Ranma rounded a corner. Had she sounded like that? Like she didn't want to talk to him? She didn't actually mean it. After a short moment, Rei continued on toward her tiny apartment.  
As she was about to enter through the front gates and into the complex, she heard someone call her name.  
"Rei?"  
Rei turned her attention toward the voice. Her eyes rested on a young looking man wearing a yellow and black bandanna.  
"Hibiki-san," she said, "What are you doing here?"  
Ryoga smiled weakly and said, "Um, well, I'm kinda lost,"  
"Where were you headed?"  
Ryoga reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of card. It was the one Misato had given Ranma a while back. Rei took the card and read it. She then looked up at Ryoga and said, "Isn't that Misato-san's apartment?"  
Ryoga nodded, "Yeah, it is. But it doesn't really help all that much cause, well, I kinda have a lousy sense of direction. I've been looking for that places since last night,"  
"All night?"  
"Yeah, I went all night," Ryoga answered, "I haven't slept yet. When I find the place, I'll ask Misato if I could sleep for an hour or so cause I'm dead tired," He yawned, which seemed to emphasize just how tired he was. There were dark rings under his eyes already.  
"Misato-san's apartment is not too far from here," Rei said. She pointed down the street and said, "Just go down that street three blocks and make a left. Go down that street one block and you'll be on Misato-  
san's block. Her apartment complex is the one on the corner, right past the arcade center,"  
Ryoga tried the best to remember it. He felt a bit embarrassed but he knew he would not make it there if his life depended on it.  
"Um, can you do me a favor and walk me there?" Ryoga gave a weak smile.  
Rei looked up at Ryoga. She nodded and said, "All right. I'll bring you,"  
Ryoga looked up at the building they were standing in front of, "Is this your building?"  
"Hai,"  
He noticed it was bit run down, "It kinda looks abandoned," He commented. He wished he had taken those words back. It might have offended her. He had no right making comments like that. "That's because it is abandoned," Rei answered stoically, her voice giving no hint that she had been offended by Ryoga's comment.  
"I-it's abandoned?" he asked, surprise in his voice, "T-then why are you staying in there?"  
"Because I am,"  
Ryoga scratched the back of his head and said, "Isn't it dangerous? I mean, what happens if you slip and fall or something? Who will be there to hear to call for help?"  
Rei was silent.  
"Do you live with anybody?"  
Rei shook her head, "No. I live by myself,"  
Ryoga's eyes widened. He couldn't believe such a young girl would be living alone. He figured she would be living with someone, like her parents. "Um, how old are you? Aren't you a bit young to be living alone?"  
Rei was silent for a moment. "I'm fourteen," Rei finally answered, "It seems like I'm not too young to be living alone because I'm already living alone,"  
"Um, shouldn't you be living with your parents or something?"  
"I have no parents" she said, not really looking up at him. Her gaze was straight ahead, toward the downtrodden building.  
"Oh, I-I'm sorry to hear that. I-I shouldn't have asked something like that," Ryoga said, sad, "I guess it's none of my business. I was just worried, that's all,"  
Rei was silent for several moments before she spoke, "I appreciate you being worried about me,"  
Ryoga gave a weak smile and said, "Um, do you want, um, wanna drop your books off first before we head on over to Misato's?"  
Rei looked down at the books she was carrying, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't bother me if I have to carry them or not,"  
Ryoga frowned a bit. He wondered why this young girl seemed to be void of emotions "All right," he said, "Let's go drop these books off. They seem heavy, here, lettme hold them for you," He extended his hand.  
Rei looked at her books and then at Ryoga's extended hand. After a moment she handed him her books.  
"All right, lead the way," he said with a smile.  
Ryoga followed Rei back to her lonely apartment.  
Ranma bumped into Misato as she was on her way home from Nerv. He had been crossing the street and she had to slam on her brakes since she didn't see him until the very last second.  
Misato was staring wide eyed at Ranma as he had his hand on her car's front hood, holding the front down so that the back wheels were lifted off the ground. After a short moment, Ranma loosened the pressure he was putting on the front of the car, allowing the back wheels to touch the ground again. He looked at Misato with a casual eye.  
"You looked like you were in a hurry," he commented.  
"Um, I have a tendency of driving fast," she said, a bit nervous. It scared her that Ranma wasn't at all bothered by the fact that he had almost gotten hit...and by her car, "A-are you all right?"  
Ranma nodded, "I'm fine,"  
"I didn't hit you, did I?" she asked, getting out of her car.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Nope. It doesn't matter that much anyway. I mean, even if you did hit me, your car would end up in worse condition than I would," He sat down on the front hood as Misato reached his side.  
Misato was silent for several moments. For some reason, she didn't doubt it, "Um, where were you headed?"  
"Dunno. Anywhere I guess. I just wanted some fresh air," He took a deep breath, "And this place happened to be not one of 'em. I think I'll head on over to the countryside,"  
"Why?"  
"No real reason, I didn't wanna stay in the same place as Asuka," Ranma answered, "She was getting on my nerves,"  
Misato nodded in accordance. Oh, how it was so true.  
"She's okay. It's just that it seems she has the biggest chip on her shoulders," he said, "But, I guess I shouldn't say something like that about her because she isn't here to defend herself. Well, I guess it was nice talking to you,"  
"Um, did you eat yet?"  
Ranma nodded, "Yeah, I cooked myself some food,"  
"Would you like to go out and get some more food? I know a good restaurant nearby," she asked, somewhat nervous.  
He thought about it for a moment before answering, "Well, not really,"  
"Um, you do know I'm asking you out to dinner, right?" Misato seemed a bit annoyed. Didn't Ranma have a clue?  
Ranma sighed, "Yeah, I do,"  
"Why did you go and sigh like that?"  
He said, "Well, this is so...typical. Sometimes, I wish I was still cursed. That way, I could avoid being asked out and such. But then again, I'll hafta worry about all the guys bothering me, but that's aside from the point. Anyway, as much as I like company, I don't like company that think of me as some, potential boyfriend, or husband, or whatever. I've been through enough of that when I was young,"  
Why that arrogant bastard!  
"Um, what makes you think I was asking you to dinner, thinking of you as some potential boyfriend? That's a rather arrogant and conceited assumption on your part. Perhaps I was just trying to be nice. Who do you think you are, god's gift to women?" Misato retorted, her anger rising. She, never in her life, had met someone as...arrogant as Ranma.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "All right. Fine. I retract that then. But, I'm still not hungry. So, there's no need in going to dinner together,"  
"Well, even if you are hungry, I'm not gonna take you anyway, not after seeing how arrogant you are,"  
Ranma stood up and tilted his head toward Misato, a smirk on his lips, "Aw, that's too bad. Actually, I was getting hungry. And, then again, you're a very beautiful woman and I wouldn't mind spending some time with you, but, I guess I'm outta luck,"  
Misato found her heart racing. God, he was gorgeous! Why the hell did he have to be right?  
"Well, I guess you're outta luck," she said before she sped off toward home.  
God, he could be so arrogant sometimes!  
Asuka was playing video games. Shortly after Ranma had left, Asuka had stormed out of the apartment, a few bills in her hand, heading for the local arcade. She needed something to do. She was ready to explode from frustration and needed something to keep her mind occupied.  
The arcade Asuka was in was loud up to the point of deafening. She had been there for around ten minutes when she noticed a tough looking group of six boys enter the already crowded arcade.  
She could care less who frequented this arcade but couldn't ignore the revulsion she felt when she felt one of the boys' hands brush across her backside as the grouped walked past.  
"Who the hell did that?" Asuka said, furious. She eyed all six boys intensely, not at all scared by the fact they were not only larger, but also older. When her eyes rested on a rather tough looking boy with short hair who was grinning from ear to ear, she knew he was the one who fondled her.  
"You're the one who grabbed me!" she said accusingly, her hands clenching into fists.  
"Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't," the boy said, "Whatcha gonna do about it?"  
"This!" she shouted, cocking one of her arms back and slamming her fist right into the boys' mouth.  
The boy absorbed the blow, his head cocking backwards from the impact. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to really faze him. He glared at Asuka, his own fists clench. "You fucking bitch!" he shouted, wiping the tiny trickle of blood with the back of his hand, "You'll pay for that!"  
Asuka took a step back. She thought she would have knocked the kid out with that one blow. As she saw the kid taking a menacing step toward her, her heart started beating rapidly. She was in trouble. This boy was a lot bigger and tougher looking than any other boy she had ever faced. She also knew that the other five boys behind him were ready to jump her.  
"I suggest you leave her alone," came a voice. Asuka turned around and saw Ryoga standing in the doorway, Rei standing a few steps behind him.  
The boy assessed the young man standing in the doorway. He wasn't all that scared of Ryoga because he had five of his friends with him. Although Ryoga was a bit taller, he would surely succumb to six people beating on him.  
The five boys stepped forward.  
"I suggest you walk away," the boy said, "This is none of yer business,"  
Ryoga walked into the arcade and looked at Asuka, he noticed the knuckles of her right hand were bleeding.  
Ryoga sneered, his fangs showing as he said, "I don't know what happened, but I seriously suggest you apologize to her,"  
The kid pulled out a knife and said, "Fuck you! You think I'm scared of you?"  
Ryoga sighed, "Jeez, what's with kids nowadays," He raised a hand and aimed it toward the kids, "Shi Shi Hakodan"  
A massive ki-blast formed at his fingertips. It hovered there, waiting to be released and shot through the air toward its intended target. The shadows flickered as the ki-blast pulsated in Ryoga's hand.  
All six kids and everyone else behind them took several steps backwards. "W-what the h-hell is that!" the kids said, dropping his knife, pissing in his pants from fright.  
"Get the hell outta here you little punks!" Ryoga shouted as he let the ki blast die down in his hands, "And dontcha ever come here again or you're gonna regret it!"  
The kids quickly got up onto their feet, one of them almost slipping on his own urine, and they quickly ran out the door.  
Once the kids were gone, Ryoga walked over to the where the knife had fallen and picked it up, breaking the blade with his hands. He broke it several more times so it resembled tiny blocks of metal and then threw it in a nearby garbage can.  
Ryoga walked over to Asuka and said, "You okay?"  
Asuka's eyes were starry as she looked up at him, "I-I am now,"  
Ryoga looked at the door, "Well, ya don't hafta worry about them anymore. They'll never come here again, that's for sure," He pinched his nose, "Jeez, one of 'em actually pissed in his pants," He looked at Asuka, "Um, sorry for the crude languages,"  
Rei, who had stayed a good distance away from the action, walked up to Asuka, "Are you okay, Asuka?"  
Without looking away from Ryoga, she answered. "I am now,"

Ranma entered Misato's apartment.  
He was surprised to see the whole gang there, at least, most of the gang.  
When he entered the livingroom, he saw Shinji, Rei, Ryoga, Asuka, and Misato.  
Ranma smirked as he looked at Ryoga, "Well, it seems Ryoga finally found his way here," He looked at the clock. It was now almost eleven. "And it only took him...twenty two hours to get here. Not bad,"  
"Shut up, Ranma!" Ryoga sneered, getting up off the couch.  
Misato's eyes widened as she got up off her love seat and lunged in front of Ryoga, "Dontcha dare, Ryoga! I don't want you and Ranma fighting in my apartment!"  
Ranma took it upon himself to flip Ryoga the middle finger, something he recalled a motorist giving him not too long ago, while Misato's back was toward him.  
"I'll kill you!" Ryoga said, fuming.  
Misato lunged forward and dove for Ryoga's legs, quickly closing her arms around them, making Ryoga fall down.  
"I said no fighting!" Misato shouted, pointing a finger at Ryoga, her eyes burning.  
Ryoga seemed to cower as he cringed a bit, "All right. I promise. No Fighting,"  
"You too, Ranma!" Misato said, getting up and turning toward him "Promise me, no fighting!"  
Ranma smirked and then nodded, "All right, Misato-chan, no fighting. I Promise."  
"How come I don't believe you?" Misato said, eyeing Ranma intently.  
He smiled back.  
"I don't trust him," Asuka commented. "So?" Ranma said, "Your opinion doesn't matter,"  
"Why you!" Asuka spat. She got up off the couch, intent on slapping him.  
Ranma smiled, "I better watch out. Asuka's angry at me,"  
Ryoga, unable to control himself, quickly got back up to his feet and punched Ranma right in the face, hard. The impact was intense and the windows shuddered slightly from the vibrations. Ranma's head was cocked back at an extreme angle.  
"How dare you tease Asuka like that!" Ryoga shouted.  
Asuka seemed to sigh as she looked up at her knight in shining armor.  
"No fighting!" Misato shouted, already visualizing the entire building collapsing because of two people fighting one another.  
Ranma brought his head back forward, "Heh, what a lame attack," He rubbed his neck a few times, "Thanks, Ryoga, ya got rid of that kink in my neck,"  
"How about I get rid of you?" he retorted, his fangs showing.  
Ranma chuckled, "Yeah, right, I'd like to see you do that. Me, I can get rid of you in no time. I'll simply lock you up in a room. You'll never find you way back out,"  
"I'll kill you!"  
"Ryoga!" Misato shouted, "No fighting!"  
"Yeah, no fighting," Ranma agreed. He cocked his arm back, "That means you can't hit me like this!"  
He brought his fist forward and struck Ryoga in the face, causing his entire head to get snapped backwards like Ranma's was before.  
"Ranma!" Misato shouted. She ran forward and grabbed Ranma's arm as he was about to punch Ryoga in the stomach.  
"Gee, you're no fun," Ranma commented, sitting down on the floor when Misato gave him a reprimanding look and then releasing his arm.  
Ryoga brought his head back forward. He looked at Ranma, "Heh, that felt like a baby's punch,"  
"No, perhaps you're too stupid to realize it's supposed to hurt," Ranma smirked.  
"Why you!" Ryoga's aura flared.  
"Lighten up," Ranma said, waving a hand, "Quit taking everything so seriously. You're gonna pop an artery at this rate,"  
"Yeah, and I'll start with yours!" he said.  
Rei said, "Do you two fight all the time?"  
The quick change in subject seemed to calm both people down. Ranma and Ryoga both stopped what they were doing to look at Rei, who was sitting on the floor next to Shinji.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yep. All the time. We hate each other,"  
"Yeah. We would kill each other if we could," Ryoga added.  
Ranma turned toward Ryoga, "Yeah, like the time we _killed_ each other with our seppukku blasts to stop that supercomputer,"  
Ryoga looked at Ranma and snickered.  
Ranma started to snicker also. After a short while, he started laughing.  
Ryoga, seeing Ranma laugh, started to laugh also.  
Pretty soon, Ranma and Ryoga burst out in laughter.  
It was around midnight when the kids started getting tired. For the past hour, everyone simply sat in the livingroom chatting. The kids asked a series of questions toward Ranma and Ryoga about how their world was, both of them answering eagerly, telling the kids and Misato that they would like living there.  
Although Ranma had originally intended to teach Shinji some more about ki, but since Ranma hadn't gotten home until way late, he decided he would stay one more day to make up for lost times. After that, he and Ryoga would leave. They have already stayed longer than they were supposed to.  
Shinji had been the first one to fall asleep. Sooner after that, Asuka fell asleep. Even though she tried her best to stay up, since she enjoyed being around Ryoga, she eventually succumbed to sleep. Rei was still up along with Ranma, Ryoga, and Misato.  
Ryoga yawned.  
"You tired, Ryoga?" Ranma asked.  
Ryoga nodded, "Yeah, I haven't slept yet. I went all night without sleep. The last time I slept was when I arrived here,"  
Ranma whistled, "Whoa, that's a long time to go without sleep. You should get some rest, man,"  
"Yeah, I'll go to sleep in a little while," Ryoga answered. He looked at Rei, "But first, let's get Rei home,"  
"You don't need to walk me home," Rei said, "I can walk by myself,"  
Ranma shook his head, "Nope. We're gonna escort you. There are a lotta crazies out there and we don't wantcha gettin' hurt or nothin',"  
"Um, t-thank you for you concern, but I'll be all right," Rei said, a slight color coming to her cheeks. She was deeply touched by Ranma and Ryoga's concern for her.  
Ranma was stubborn, "Well, it doesn't matter. We're still gonna walk you home,"  
Rei was silent.  
"Um, Rei, I could always drive you home, y'know," Misato said. Unfortunately, she couldn't suppress the yawn that just hit her.  
"Yeah, right," Ranma chuckled, "Considerin' how tired you look, you'll probably fall asleep at the wheel,"  
Misato smiled weakly. Boy, she was really tired. "Go to sleep," Ranma said, "We'll see to it that Rei gets home safely," He made an exaggerated motion of shooing her away as if she were a fly. Misato smiled warmly, "All right, I'll take you up on your suggestion," She was tired enough that she was slowly starting to have trouble discerning reality and fiction. She needed some sleep and fast.  
When she retired to her bedroom, Ranma turned toward Rei, "C'mon Rei, let's get going,"  
Ranma and Rei and Ryoga both left the apartment.  
On the way to Rei's complex, Ranma and Ryoga were indulging themselves in conversation. Rei walked meekly behind the two of them.  
"I seriously hope we find the nanban mirror," Ranma continued, "I don't really wanna be stuck here. There's people waitin' for us back home," He turned toward Rei, "Right, Rei?"  
Ryoga cringed. He wished he had told Ranma about what Rei had told him earlier.  
"T-there's no one at home waiting from me..." Rei said stoically, continuing to walk, even after Ranma and Ryoga stopped.  
"Huh? Y-you mean you live alone?" Ranma asked, "T-that's not right. Where's your family,"  
"I-I have no family," she answered back.  
Ranma looked at Rei, "Oh, I-I'm sorry to hear that. What happened? Did they die?" Rei didn't answer.  
Ranma, not wanting to push further, scared that he might make her bring back bad memories, said, "I don't have a family either,"  
"Y-you don't?" she asked.  
Ranma shook his head, "No. I've lost my family many years ago. Everyone. The town I used to live in was destroyed along with everyone who lived there. My friends and family died along with the hundred of thousands on that day,"  
"I'm sorry to hear that," Rei said, "Does it hurt?"  
Ranma looked at Rei for a moment before he answered, "Yeah, it hurts. Sometimes I wake up, and expect to see my family. Of course, that'll never happen,"  
"Is there ever anything that reminds you of your past? Of your family?"  
Ranma thought about it for a moment and said, "No. Not really. I lost everything. All I escaped with were the clothes on my back. I...I lost a lot of people I care about that day. I went many many years hating myself, blaming myself for not being able to save them, but eventually, I learned to live with it,"  
Rei was silent. She stopped for a moment to look at Ranma. "Well, we're here," Ryoga said, recognizing the complex. He didn't recognize the surroundings but he definitely recognized the complex. It kind of stuck out, what with it being all run down and so down trodden.  
Ranma looked at the complex, "Y-you l-live here?"  
Ryoga gave Ranma a menacingly look, his eyes telling Ranma to keep his stinking mouth shut. Ranma seemed to have caught the meaning of Ryoga's glaring. He remained silent.  
Silently, the two escorted Rei up to her apartment. When she opened the door, she peered in and noticed how much it looked void of life. She turned toward Ranma and Ryoga and said, "Thank you for walking me home. I appreciate your concern," She turned around and entered the apartment, closing the door on them.  
Ranma and Ryoga stared at the door for several moments.  
"I feel...I feel sorry for her," Ranma commented. He had looked over her shoulder when she had entered and noticed how bleak the place looked. "She shouldn't be living like this," He felt helpless.  
Ryoga nodded. He said, "We should do something about it,"  
"What happens if she doesn't approve of it?" Ranma asked, "I mean, I-  
it's really none of our business, right?"  
Ryoga sighed.  
"But then again, she seems like a sweet girl," Ranma said, "But from what I notice, it...it seems like she just doesn't care anymore. Anyway, I can't just sit around and let her live like this, not after finding out that she has no parents and that she's living alone,"  
"Um, I have a question,"  
"Oh?"  
Ryoga thought for a moment before he spoke, "Um, who would you go to to have this place fixed up?"  
Ranma smiled. It seemed Ryoga was having the same idea as him, "You know what, Ryoga, I was thinking about the same thing," He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, "I've got plenty of cash. If we need more, we could always go out and get jobs,"  
"But what about going back home?" Ryoga asked "Akane and the others are waitin' for us,"  
Ranma nodded, "I know that. But I think this is more important. I'm pretty sure Akane won't mind after we tell her what took us so long getting home,"  
"I hope so,"  
Ryoga yawned.  
"Heh, you better get some sleep man," Ranma smirked. "You look like you could use about a week's worth of sleep,"  
Ryoga nodded, "You're right about that. I betcha at this rate, I could sleep through the next Angel attack,"  
Ranma chuckled a bit.  
"I'm going to sleep out here," Ryoga said. He leaned against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, "I don't know why, but I'm a bit worried. I mean, this is an old building and all. Also, who knows who wanders the streets at this time of night. I don't like the thought of her being alone, that's all,"  
Ranma smiled. He leaned against the wall and slid down it, sitting down next to Ryoga.  
"You took the words right out of my mouth. Even though she probably doesn't care if we stay or not, I'll stay," Ranma said, yawning and stretching his arms once.  
Without saying another word, Ranma and Ryoga closed their eyes and went to sleep.  
In her lonely and bleak apartment, Rei leaned against the door, closing her eyes.  
She had heard everything Ranma and Ryoga had said.  
"Thank you for you concern,"  
Ranma and Ryoga seemed to have awoken at the same time. It was probably around three in the morning. Only a few hours had passed since they walked Rei home.  
They both looked down and noticed a blanket wrapped around them. A cool breeze blew by, strong enough to send a shiver down one's spine. Ryoga and Ranma didn't shiver. They looked at each other and smiled.  
After that, they both went back to sleep.

The next day, Rei woke up early, like always. As she was leaving her apartment, she almost tripped over the sleeping forms of Ranma and Ryoga.  
She stood there for several moments, looking down at them.  
"You didn't need to do that," she said softly. She wondered what other things Ranma and Ryoga could be doing right now, instead of sleeping in front of her apartment, worried about her well being. Here they were, in a world they do not belong to, not knowing if they would ever be able to get home, yet they are worried about someone other than themselves.  
Ranma opened an eye, "Yes we did,"  
Rei was momentarily startled. She had thought Ranma and Ryoga were both asleep.  
Ranma got up to his feet and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, "You're on your way to school, ne?"  
"Yes,"  
He looked up at the sun and how high it was in the sky, "Ain't it pretty early? It must be, what, seven thirty,"  
"I was on my way to school." Rei looked at Ranma curiously. "How did you know what time it was?"  
He smiled warmly and said, "It's not that hard. If you look at the sun and how high it is in the sky, you can approximate what time it is. Of course, this only works for the day. But it doesn't really matter all that much to me though, I mean, the concept of time doesn't really matter to me anymore,"  
"I don't understand,"  
"Time doesn't matter all that much to me anymore," he answered her, "I mean, I'm already sixty or so years old. Heck, I don't even know how old I am,"  
"You do you not know how old you are?" Rei asked, looking up at Ranma.  
"Hey, you were on your way to school, right? I'll walk you,"  
"What about Ryoga?"  
"I'll come back for him later," Ranma said with a smile, "Let him sleep. He hasn't slept since he got here," Together, Rei and Ranma walked down the street.  
"Where was I? Oh, you were asking about how I don't know how old I was," Ranma said, "Well, I know I'm somewhere around sixty, but I have no real idea of the exact age. Physically, I have no idea what so ever on how old I am. I mean, I think I'm somewhere in my twenties,"  
"In your twenties?"  
Ranma nodded, "Well, no one knows this, but I trust you," he found himself saying for some reason. There was something about this girl that made him want to bare his soul to her. Although she was very quiet, she seemed to listen intently.  
"Trust me?" Rei said dubiously, "You trust me? Why?"  
"Why not?" Ranma said, "Is there any reason why I shouldn't trust you?"  
"Because you don't know me,"  
"That doesn't really matter," Ranma said, "You barely know me yet you trust me,"  
Rei looked at Ranma. "How do you know I trust you?"  
He smiled, "Do you trust me then?"  
Rei was silent for a short moment but found herself saying, "Yes, I do,"  
"Well, that kinda explains it," Ranma said, "Anyway, where was I? Oh, my age. No one really knows this, but I used to be cursed,"  
"Cursed?"  
Ranma sighed, "It's what people would definitely call a curse. One of the things about my curse, was that I have a cursed form. I became cursed when I was very young. Now, every time I get changed into my cursed form, my originally form would age back toward the age of when I was first cursed. So, imagine this. I manage to avoid going onto my cursed form for, say, decade, which is nearly impossible. Now if I accidentally get changed into my cursed form, my true form would age backwards. That means that when I change back, I'm ten years younger. Pretty messed up, huh?" Ranma noticed a restaurant, "Hey, Rei, let's go get something to eat. My treat of course. You're hungry, right?"  
"It doesn't matter,"  
Ranma sighed. Sometimes, he didn't like the way Rei answered his questions. But that didn't matter. Ranma wouldn't be perturbed. He considered Rei a challenge, "Well, if it doesn't matter, then we go eat. I'm starved. I'm in the mood for some dim sum for some reason," He looked at Rei for a short moment, "But since you don't like meat, let's go get some salad,"  
Rei looked at Ranma, "How did you know that I don't like meat? I never told you,"  
He smiled, "Well, I noticed you cringe when I mentioned dim sum. And since it has meat..."  
"But I didn't cringe,"  
"I know," he said, "But your eyes did. You can tell a lot about a person just by looking at their eyes,"  
"You can?"  
Ranma looked right into Rei's eyes. She stood very still, her gaze unwavering. He smirked, "Well well well, you like my company,"  
"W-what? How did you know?"  
Ranma burst out laughing. "I didn't but I do now. I was just guessin', but seeing how you seemed so shocked at my little revelation, I knew my guess was right,"  
Rei found herself blushing.  
"And look, you're blushing, that will definitely confirm it!" he said with a big smile.  
She tried to fight her blush but couldn't. Ranma seemed to have a way of evoking emotions from Rei, albeit slightly.  
"There's still some time before school starts. C'mon, let's go get some food, my treat," Ranma said, placing a hand on Rei's shoulder "Let's consider it a date," He smiled warmly, a smile Rei could get used t, "I kinda wish I knew you when I was young,"  
"Y-you do?" she asked, interested. She looked up at him, wondering where that came from.  
"You're nice to be with,"  
Ranma was walking down the street back toward Rei's apartment when Misato's car pulled up next to him.  
"Hiya, Misato, what's up?"  
"On my way to work. What about you?" she said, leaning out the car door.  
"Oh, I was headed back to Rei's apartment," he said with a smile, leaning against the side of the car, "I figured I'd do her a favor and fix her tiny apartment up. After having seen her apartment, I don't like the thought of a sweet, although quiet, girl like Rei living alone there. I have money, surely there's something we could do, perhaps go to a contractor,"  
Misato smiled back warmly, "I admire your kind heart, Ranma. But there's really nothing you can do,"  
"Oh? Why the heck not?"  
"Because she was assigned that particular living space by Nerv," she replied, "Unfortunately, because of that, you have no business messing around or fixing her apartment. It's probably going to piss a whole lotta people off because in doing so, it will seem as you are challenging Nerv itself,"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "So?"  
Misato laughed a bit, "Look, up until this point, Nerv has pretty much tolerated and appreciated your help with their battle against the Angels. I don't think they'll appreciate you going up against them."  
"It doesn't really bother me," he said, "What bothers me is where and how she is living. She's a young girl for god sakes,"  
Misato sighed, "Well, if you're really interested, it's best you help Rei out at the source, by going to Nerv,"  
"Who?"  
"Who else? Commander Ikari," she said, "He's pretty much in charge of everything. I'm pretty much positive he won't even listen to you. He's a cold man,"  
"A dick is more like it," he said, clenching his hands, "Although I'd never do something to someone who can't defend themselves, I'd really like smack him around a few times one of these days,"  
Misato laughed again, "Well, anyway, he's the man to go to about getting Rei's apartment fixed. Because he's probably going to view your hostility toward him as a personal attack, he might actually throw you in the brig, even if you did help and are only looking out for someone else's well being,"  
"I don't care. If that's going to happen, then Ryoga's going to come with me," Ranma said, "I mean, I'm not some bad guy or something. I just have a soft spot for children,"  
"And I deeply admire it, Ranma. Just keep a level head. Gendo is a very influential man. I don't know if this would actually happen, but he would probably get rid of you if he ever thought you were a threat to him or Nerv,"  
"Screw him," Ranma entered Gendo's office.  
"I wanna have a word with ya," Ranma said, walking up to Gendo's desk. "You are not authorized to enter my office and do as you please, get "Get out!" Gendo said, very annoyed.  
Ranma stood there, defiant. He crossed his arms over his chest, "You don't scare me,"  
Gendo sighed as he crossed his arms in front of him. He had been expecting Ranma to react like that. The man before him would not be intimidated by anyone, not even Gendo.  
"I'm listening,"  
Ranma wasn't paying attention because he was busy regarding the room for a short moment, "Jeez, where the hell is everything? Where are the seats? It's so dark in here,"  
Gendo's eyes creased, "What do you want?"  
Ranma turned toward Gendo, "I wanna speak to you about Rei,"  
"Oh?"  
"I don't want her living in such a crappy ass apartment," he said.  
Gendo almost smirked. This man before him sure had a limited vocabulary. It was kind of funny that a man so powerful could be so vulgar.  
"I saw her place," Ranma continued, "It's a goddamn dump. It's also noisy around the area, too. I'd like for you to do something about it,"  
"And what do you propose I do?" Gendo said, his voice cold.  
"I dunno," came the reply, "Have her moved to a better place. Jeez, she's one of your EVA pilots. She should at least deserve better,"  
"And what makes you think she wants something better? How do you know that is what she wants?" Gendo asked matter-of-factly.  
Ranma was getting mad. He gritted his teeth. This man was just toying with him.  
"I don't know what she wants," Ranma said, "But then again, she might not know it either. She's too passive to say anything. I'm just trying to say the words that she might try to say but is too quiet to say so,"  
That seemed to hit a soft spot with Gendo. His face showed no signs though.  
The brows of Ranma's eyes raised, "Well, it seems I've hit a soft spot,"  
"W-what?"  
"I saw it in your eyes," he said, "You seem to have a soft spot for that girl,"  
There was a moment of silence before Gendo finally spoke, "It doesn't matter whether or not I have a soft spot for the child. She is a pilot. That is all that matters,"  
"She's a human being, ya goddamn dick!" Ranma spat.  
Gendo twitched a bit.  
"I'll make a deal with you," Ranma said.  
"I won't accept," he replied.  
"You haven't heard what I've got to say," Ranma replied.  
"It doesn't matter. I won't accept,"  
Ranma gritted his teeth. He really, truly disliked this man. He felt sorry for Shinji, having to have a father like the man standing before him, "Fine, if you won't accept, then I'll do something about it,"  
"Is that a threat?" Gendo said, standing up. His hand was close to the little red button under the desk that would have a horde of security men come into the room immediately after it was pressed.  
Ranma sneered, not backing down from the challenge, "Gendo, do you want it to be a threat?"  
Gendo pressed the button. He didn't have time for this. "Get out! I don't want to ever see you here again!"  
Ranma stood where he was, not at all bothered by that fact that a dozen or so armed guards will be there at any moment. "Send those damn EVA units after me for all I care," he sneered, "I ain't gonna budge,"  
Without saying a word, Ranma grabbed Gendo's table and pushed it toward the door from where he had entered, blocking the entrance. Gendo was absolutely shocked upon seeing this incredible feat. The table not only weighed a ton, but it had been nailed into the ground and was supposed to stationary.  
Ranma turned toward a somewhat perturbed Gendo.  
Gendo was looking at the empty space of what used to be his desk. Four struts that used to hold the desk stationary could be seen jutting out from the floor. "Ryoga and I will leave, but under one condition," Ranma said. "What condition is that?" Gendo said, suppressing the urge to sigh. This man was like nothing he had ever met. Ranma was an extremely powerful young man. And he was very intelligent also. Although he lacked mundane knowledge, Ranma was extremely perceptive, able to notice the most subtle of differences.  
"We want you to have Rei stay somewhere better," Ranma said, "She doesn't deserve to live in that crappy apartment that had been assigned to her,"  
"In return for what?"  
"That we leave," he replied, "You have my word on it,"  
Gendo was silent for several minutes. After a while, he nodded and said,  
"Very well,"

And so, Rei was assigned to a new apartment at Gendo's request.

Ranma and Ryoga were behind Rei as she entered her new apartment for the very first time. It had only taken a day for new quarters to be assigned to her. The apartment looked nothing like Rei's old one.  
"Well, what do you think?" Ranma asked, smiling warmly.  
"It looks nice," Rei said softly.  
"I know it was none of my business," Ranma said, "It's just that I didn't like the thought of you living in a place like that old one. We both believe you deserve better,"  
"You do?"  
Ranma and Ryoga nodded.  
"Thank you," she replied softly.  
Ranma and Ryoga both smiled warmly.  
Ryoga started looking around, "Wow, this is a nice apartment. It even has carpeting. Not like that cold wooden floorboards in your old one,"  
He turned toward Ranma and said, "Well, I guess Gendo kept his end of the deal. Now's our turn,"  
Rei looked at both Ranma and Ryoga, a bit confused.  
"We're leaving," Ranma said, "I told Gendo that we would leave in exchange that we have you assigned to a better apartment,"  
"Y-you're leaving?" she asked.  
Ranma and Ryoga nodded.  
"You did all of this for me," she commented, looking at the cozy looking apartment. There was an open window near the back of the apartment and it was opened, allowing for a beautiful and quiet view of the park just across the street. One thing that was very evident between this apartment and the other one, aside from its interior, was that it was very quiet. All that could be heard were bird singing their love songs. "Why? Why do you do this?" she asked.  
"Why not?" Ranma smiled, "You're a nice girl. You deserve better,"

Ranma and Ryoga were walking down the street. It was dark out and somewhere near midnight.  
"Man, we have a long way to go," Ranma muttered.  
"Yeah, China's a long ways off from here," Ryoga agreed, "It's going to take us quite a bit of time before we make it there. And how the hell are we gonna get there in the first place?"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "How else, we swim,"  
"Do you think we'll find the village and the mirror? I mean, don't you remember what Ritsuko said?" Ryoga said, "After that Second Impact thing, Antarctica melted and the water level rose. The village could be completely underwater, y'know," Ryoga didn't really like the thought of that. He didn't like the thought of being stuck here...forever. Akane was back home waiting for him. And that cad Ranma, Ryoga thought angrily.  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "I really dunno. I hope the village is still above water,"

In a massive flash of light, Ranma and Ryoga reappeared in the air high above Geofront. It had been somewhere around a month since Ranma and Ryoga had been in Geofront. Over the span of that timeframe, they had swam all the way to China where they had fortunately found the nanban mirror. Luckily for them, the Amazon Village that had the mirror had been underwater.  
Upon appearing in the air, they immediately fell toward the ground below as gravity took over.  
The two landed on the ground skillfully, neither of them getting hurt in the process, despite the speed of which they landed.  
Ranma, holding the nanban mirror, looked around. Ryoga did the same.  
"W-what the hell's going on here?" he said, his eyes widening. As he looked around, he saw nine white robots attacking a lone red one. "W-where did those things come from?" Ryoga asked.  
"Hey, t-that's Asuka's EVA!" Ranma said, pointing. He caught sight as Unit-02 desperately battled EVA unit and EVA unit. "C'mon, we have to go help her out!" He had no real idea what the hell was going on, but if Asuka was in trouble, he would do whatever he could to ensure her safety.  
Without saying another word, Ranma ran toward the battle as fast as he could.

Asuka gritted her teeth as she skillfully maneuvered her EVA to battle the charging enemy. Unit-02 was taking massive damage as she desperately tried to fight for her life. The battle was in no way, fair. She was out numbered, out gunned, but luckily for her, she was more skilled. "I'll kill every one of you!" Asuka shouted as she faced the white EVA in front of her. She wasn't at all bothered by the thought of several EVAs surrounding her.  
From out of her peripheral vision, she saw a flash of light. The next thing she noticed was a massive explosion erupting on the chest of the white EVA in front of her.  
"W-what the?"  
Ranma ran up the side of the mountain, his legs aching from running harder and faster than it ever had.  
"Asuka!" he shouted.  
Asuka, momentarily distracted at the sight of seeing the explosion, was stabbed through the torso from behind. Red lights within her cockpit flared to life the computer assessed the massive damage the unit had just received.  
She looked down as saw what looked like a massive white sword emerging from the EVA's stomach.  
Ranma, seeing what had just happened, went into a fit of rage.  
"What the fuck do you think you're doing to Asuka?" he shouted, his aura flaring. He didn't even think of the consequences that would result as he let rip one of his most powerful ki-blasts toward the white robot "Seppukku Mouko Takabisha!"  
Ryoga stumbled back as he heard Ranma say the words "W-what the hell didja do that for?" But it was too late. The ki erupted from Ranma's fingertips and shot through the air, striking the attacking EVA in its side. The impact of the blast striking the EVA had been so intense that the EVA was blown toward the side, losing grip of its weapon, sliding down the side of the hill, its AT field shattered. Unit-02, being within such close proximity of the blast, was blown bodily forward, sliding the side of the mountain, the weapon still embedded in its torso.  
Asuka, as she quickly maneuvered her EVA to stand up, looked about her cockpit and noticed a sudden presence of extremely high energy slowly proceeding toward her from the side. She turned her EVA toward the presence, seeing nothing.  
"W-where is it?" she shouted, almost going insane. She must be seeing things. She could have sworn she had read the instruments correctly. In a state of extreme stress and rage, Asuka made her EVA pull the weapon out of its side, more lights in her cockpit going up as more damages resulted from the actual act of pulling the weapon out. "Asuka!" Ranma shouted, releasing another ki-blast toward a nearby EVA. He didn't care what it was or why it was there. It had put Asuka's life in danger and he would not allow that.  
Asuka looked down. She must be seeing things because she was seeing Ranma and Ryoga near the foot of her EVA. She blinked several times, believing she was starting to go insane as the stress from knowing she was going to die started to consume her. "R-Ranma?"  
Ryoga, sensing something, quickly looked behind him and saw a charging EVA. It was the same EVA that Ranma had hit with his seppukku ki-blast. It was badly damaged, its right arm severed from its body. He saw two other EVAs following close behind, their weapons braced for attack. In a state of panic, Ryoga was forced to improvise, developing a new technique on the spot.  
"Seppukku Bakusai Tenketsu!" he shouted, his finger darting right into the mountain.  
Ranma's eyes widened. He prayed he didn't hear that correctly, "Oh no!" The entire mountain exploded. The three hapless EVA units that had been on the mountain when it explode were thrown backwards, away from the group.  
Ranma, Ryoga, and Unit-02 were sent flying through the air, all of them landing several dozen yards or so apart, several hundred yards away from the huge gaping hole in the ground from what used to be the mountain. Ranma and Ryoga quickly rolled onto their feet, quickly rushing toward Unit-02, which was lying motionless on its front.  
"Get up! Get up!" Asuka shouted, tears forming, diluted in the LCL that she was submerged in. Her EVA wasn't responding. It had sustained too much damage.  
Ryoga and Ranma stood near Unit-02, ready for anything. They watched cautiously as eight EVAs surrounded them. The ninth one, the one with its arm severed, was lying a short ways off, unmoving.  
"H-how the h-hell are we supposed to stop 'em?" Ranma said, feeling a massive rush of adrenaline surge through his body. He was badly hurt. His back was bleeding from the rocks and shrapnel that had hit him. Ryoga was in no better condition.  
Ranma looked toward Unit-02 and said, "Asuka, you have to get up!"  
Asuka, finally realizing what was going on, that Ranma and Ryoga had come back, said, "I-I can't! It won't respond!"  
"Shit, we're sitting ducks out here in the open!" Ranma said. He noticed how the EVAs were slowly starting to circle them. As one of them got a bit close, Ranma let loose another ki-blast. The blast struck the EVA right in the chest, sending it reeling backwards, its AT field shattered.  
Ryoga, seeing the AT field shatter, shot his own ki-blast, hitting it in the chest. It did no damage.  
"O-our ki-blasts have no affect!" Ryoga shouted, his eyes widening.  
"W-we have to use our seppukku blasts!" Ranma said, slumping low to the ground. That seppukku blast he had thrown had taken a huge chunk of his energy away. He would never be able to keep this up. He would succumb to exhaustion before he finished those EVAs off.  
"We can't use our seppukku blasts!" Ryoga shouted, "T-they're too goddamn close!"  
Ranma looked at Unit-02. His eyes widened as he saw the weapon a short ways off.  
"Ryoga, lets use that weapon!" he said.  
"What? Look at how big that thing is!" Ryoga shouted, "Are you crazy? I may be strong, but I can't throw that thing!"  
Ranma shook his head, "You don't have to throw it! We'll work together! Use your Bakusai Tenketsu to get it into the air! I'll use my Hiryu Shoten Ha to propel it forward!"  
Ryoga smiled. That was a damn good plan. Without saying anything, Ryoga walked over the weapon that had slipped out of Unit-02's grip and fallen to the ground. He jabbed his index finger into the ground below the weapons and shouted, "Bakusai Tenketsu!"  
The ground below him and the weapon exploded upward. Ryoga was blown into the air, sent flying bodily backwards but unhurt.  
The weapon, too, was blown into the air, albeit little due to its extreme mass and weight. Fortunately, that was all that was needed.  
"Horizontal Wave Revised! Hiryu Shoten Ha!" Ranma shouted as he let loose a massive column of wind from his fingers virtually parallel to the ground, directing it toward a nearby EVA. The column of wind engulfed the weapon and shot it forward, spinning it like a helicopter blade, sending right into the hapless EVA. The blade struck the EVA right across its chest. Half the top part of the EVA slid off its torso. The bottom half of the EVA fell forward while its top half fell backwards.  
"Yeah! Two down! Seven to go!" Ranma said enthusiastically, raising his hand into the air in triumph.  
"What are you, stupid?" Ryoga spat, "How the hell do you expect us to take down seven more of these? We had enough taking down two! And we have no more weapons to use against 'em? We'll be exhausted by the time we get rid of the next one!" Ryoga's breathing was already labored. There was no way he could continue on at this rate. He was already a bit hurt. There was no way they could fight them off. They had to do something else.  
"Ranma, we hafta take cover!" he shouted. He pointed toward Unit-02, "We hafta get Asuka out!"  
Ranma looked down at Unit-02, "And how do ya suppose that?"  
"I dunno! Find a way!" Ryoga shouted. He turned toward the circling "I-I'll keep 'em distracted!"  
Ryoga rushed off toward one of the EVA.  
"Good luck, Ryoga,"

Asuka continued to make her EVA respond, "Get up! Get up! Get up! Get up!" She was crying. She felt helpless. Her entire cockpit was glowing red from the all the damage lights having gone up. She knew she was done for. In no time, those EVAs would rip her to shreds.  
"Asuka," she heard a muffled voice.  
"W-who is it?"  
Ranma had his ear pressed against the EVA's back, "Asuka, where the hell are you? I'm here to get you out!"  
"R-Ranma?" she asked.  
"Yeah," he said, "Where are you?"  
All of a sudden, she found herself crying, "I-I'm in the Entry Plug," She tried to eject herself. It was no use. Unit-02 was no longer responding. Everything save for life support had ceased function.  
"Entry Plug? What the hell is that?"  
"I-it's in the base of the head and runs along the spine..." her voice was very soft but loud enough for Ranma to hear...barely.  
"Hold on tight, I'll getcha out in no time," he said. He ran up the EVA's back and stopped at the base of the head. He brought his fist up and brought it down with vicious speed, striking the armor as hard as he could. He was shocked to see that he barely damaged the armor. All that had been left behind after the impact was a dent mark the size of his fist.  
"W-what the hell's this armor made of?" he said, a bit shocked. He extended an impatient hand forward and shot a ki-blast right at it. When the blast subside, leaving behind a slightly singed Ranma, the armor was only slightly more damaged.  
"Jeez!" Ranma scratch the back of his head, "T-this is not good!"  
"Ranma," Ryoga shouted, "What the hell are you waitin' for? Get her outta there!" He turned he attention back toward the EVAs and let loose ki-blast much more powerful than his average ki-blast but less powerful than a seppukku one. The blast sent an EVA falling down to its knees, unable to function due to the damage, needing to take a minute to regenerate.  
Ranma, knowing that they would be overwhelmed in a very short while, had one more option left. He allowed his aura to flare as he brought his cocked his fist and concentrated all his ki into his hand. All his ki flowed into his hand and pretty soon his fist started to glow red.  
He was very reluctant of using this newly acquired technique but he had no choice. Remembering how it had sent him into a coma when he had first executed it, Ranma closed his eyes and prayed that he would survive this. Asuka depended on him.  
Ranma brought his glowing red fist down and struck the base of the head.  
Asuka was thrown around in her cockpit as she felt her entire EVA shake violently. She was forced to grab onto the controls tightly as she risked hitting her head against the cockpit walls.  
All of a sudden a light entered her cockpit as the LCL she was submerged in started to flood out of the tiny chamber.  
"Damn, that's lever's hot!" she heard Ranma's voice enter the cockpit. She turned her head around and caught sight of light entering into the cockpit through a tiny hole. All of a sudden, her cockpit shook again as she saw Ranma's foot enter in through the hole, making the hole larger.  
With the hole wide enough to fit someone through, Ranma peaked his head through, "Asuka, I came to get you out!" He tried to climb in but immediately jerked his hand back, "Ah, shit, that's hot! Ah, screw it!" He climbed into the cockpit, ignoring super heated metal that surrounded the entry plug he was touching upon climbing in.  
Once inside, Asuka looked up at him with wide eyes, "R-Ranma?" Her voice seemed to be failing her.  
Ranma smiled, "Yep. C'mon, let's get you outta that thing, whatever that is..." He was referring to the seat that was almost partially attached to Asuka. He cocked his hand back and struck the control panel, breaking it. After several more punches, the panel fell down in a crumpled heap, allowing Asuka to escape. After staring at her savior for several moment, Asuka quickly realized exactly what was going on, "Y-you're here to save me?"  
Ranma nodded, "Yep. You may not know it, but I do care about you,"  
Asuka paused, a blush coming to her cheeks. Did she hear that correctly?  
After a moment, she quickly came up with an idea. She said, "I-I'm gonna self-  
destruct Unit-02!" Although the EVA had little or no power, it would always be able to self-destruct. She had to get rid of those EVA units, even if that meant the death of everyone within the area.  
"All right, but make it fast,"  
She quickly reached over and grabbed the self-destruct lever and pulled it. She had twenty minutes to get as far away from here as possible.  
He grabbed Asuka and quickly pulled her into his arms. Not really knowing how to react, Asuka held onto Ranma tightly, her head resting snugly against the little crook between his neck and shoulders.  
Ranma quickly made his way back out the cockpit and out into the artificial sunlight that shone in the Geofront. Outside, he shouted to Ryoga, "Hey, Ryoga, I've got her. Let's get the hell outta here!"  
Ryoga knowing that he had done his job, turned toward Ranma, "Yeah, let's do, but where the hell do we go?"  
"Where else? Nerv Headquarters!" Ranma quickly shouted, leaping high into the air, just as a spear struck the ground where he had been a second ago, "We've gotta take cover!"  
Ranma and Ryoga quickly made it to the headquarters in no time flat. The EVAs seemed to have stopped attacking them as they focused their attacks on Unit-02. They all ganged up on the unmoving EVA and proceeded to rip it apart, slicing into it with their weapons and also eating at it.  
"We hafta close the entrance!" Asuka quickly shouted. She was still in Ranma's arms and she held him tightly, her head snuggled against his neck, "In case those EVAs come after us before Unit-02 self-destructs!"  
"Yeah, you heard her! Go close the damn entrance!" Ranma shouted. "And ya better hurry cause that EVA's gonna self-destruct in about ten minutes or so!"  
Ryoga didn't have time act shocked. He did exactly as Ranma had said and struck his finger right into the one of the walls.  
Ranma, still holding Asuka, turned his back toward the blast, protecting Asuka with his body.  
The entire wall exploded as shrapnel and rock flew in every direction. When the dust subsided, only a fraction of the opening had been closed up. Ryoga, realizing he had to do better than that, struck an index finger into the wall again and again, not even bothering to wait for the dust to clear up. After several times of striking the wall, the entire front section of Nerv Headquarters fell down on them, closing up the entrance under thousands and thousands of tons of rubble.  
Ranma and Ryoga both ran further into the building, avoiding the falling debris. When they were deep into the heart of Nerv Headquarters, Ranma gently placed Asuka on her feet. Asuka, unable to control her feelings, started to cry. She managed to say in shaky voice, "T-thank you, R-Ranma, for what you did back there,"  
Ranma smiled a bit, "I'm glad you're all right,"  
All of a sudden, he keeled over and spat out a large quantity of blood. When he had been busy trying to save Asuka, busy running break through the armor, busy running from the falling building, he never had time to think of the pain he was in. He had never had the chance to realize the extent of his injuries.  
Ryoga looked down at Ranma, "Yo, Ranma, you okay?"  
Ranma tried to nod. Everything hurt. That ki-saturated punch he had executed on Asuka's EVA had seriously hurt him. He just didn't have the time to worry about his injuries. Now that he had a chance to rest, he also had a chance to realize the extent of his injuries.  
"Oh, god, do I wish I'm cursed," Ranma slowly got to his feet, clutching his ribs, "All I need is some cold water,"  
Asuka looked at him curious. Ranma tried to walk forward but keeled forward again, blood gushing from his mouth yet again.  
Ryoga shook his head, "All right, I'm gonna go getcha to the infirmary," He picked up Ranma and threw him over his shoulder and turned toward Asuka, "Where's the infirmary? Better yet, c-can you show me the way, please?"  
Asuka numbly nodded. She quickly ran down the corridor, Ryoga following behind her.  
As she ran down the corridor, she caught sight of Shinji. He was kneeling over Misato as she lay on the floor. "W-what h-happened?" Asuka said. "H-he shot her...h-he s-shot her!" Shinji said through tears as he held Misato's dying body against his frail body. Misato, after having found Shinji, had been trying to get Shinji to Unit-01's cargo bay to send him out to save Asuka but she and Shinji accidentally came across Gendo.  
"Where's Rei?" Asuka asked.  
"I don't know!" he said, looking up at Asuka, his eyes almost blank. He caught sight of Ranma and Ryoga, "R-Ranma...R-Ryoga,"  
"Oh shit, what the hell's going on?" Ryoga said. He dropped Ranma on the ground and rushed over to Misato. Kneeling down next to her, he placed his hand up to her neck, "She's still alive but her pulse is a little racy," He looked at the gunshot wound, "It probably went through her one of her vital organs, we hafta have her treated and fast,"  
Shinji watched through tears as Ryoga picked Misato up as carefully as possible. Ryoga's yellow shirt turned red from the blood of Misato's wounds.  
Ryoga walked over to Ranma, who was now unconscious, and grabbed one of his arms. He turned toward Asuka, "Which way to the infirmary?"  
"I-I'll show you," Asuka said, quickly rushing down the corridor.  
Shinji stood very still as he watched Ryoga, dragging Ranma, carrying Misato, rounded a corner.  
"I'm not going to run away!" Shinji cried out.  
He ran down the corridor and stopped Ryoga.  
"What is it?" Ryoga asked, "We have to get her treated,"  
Shinji grabbed the gun from Misato's holster and cocked it.  
"I'm going to kill him!"  
With that said, Shinji ran down the corridor toward the elevators that led down to Central Dogma.

Ryoga ran into Central Dogma and found Shinji lying motionless in the middle of the room in a small puddle of blood, Rei by his side. He didn't have the time to go after Shinji before because Misato needed treatment as fast as possible or she would have died. Luckily, Ryoga was able to bring both to the infirmary in time for them to be saved. Ranma had been still unconscious.  
Ryoga looked at the bloody Shinji on one side of the room, Rei, stark naked, by his side, crying for him. He noticed on the other side was Gendo, dead, lying motionless on the ground in a puddle of his own blood, his gun lying a few feet away from the body.  
"W-what happened?" Ryoga asked. He turned his attention from Shinji and onto a massive white monster that seemed to be crucified on a large red cross. "W-what the hell is that?" Below the monster he saw the dying body of Ritsuko, lying motionless in the pool of LCL.  
Ryoga took a step back, his eyes wide. To him, the monster looked like an Angel with seven eyes.  
From out of the shadows emerged a man. The person looked like an elderly man wearing a visor like device.  
"That is my ticket to a higher plane," Lorenz said, sneering. "W-who the hell are you?" Ryoga said.  
"It doesn't matter who I am," Lorenz said. He looked totally in control, "You're not going to stop me from achieving my goals!"  
He slowly walked toward Rei.  
Ryoga ran forward to block Lorenz's path toward Rei.  
"Whoever you are, I ain't gonna letcha go near these children!" Ryoga spat. Although he was physically tired and exhausted, he still had enough strength to fight this man, whoever he was.  
Lorenz laughed mockingly, "And you think you could stop me?" He continued to walk forward.  
"Don't go near him, Ryoga!" Rei shouted, "He's part machine!"  
In what seemed like a blink of an eye, Ryoga found himself being lifted up into the air. It took a moment before he realized that his opponent had somehow ran forward and grabbed Ryoga by his neck, lifting him up into the air while squeezing tightly.  
Rei shrieked, "R-Ryoga!"  
Ryoga, desperate and knowing he would black out due to lack of oxygen, cocked his hand back and brought it forward right into Lorenz's face. Lorenz didn't seem to get be effected by such a devastating blow. "Ryoga!" Rei shouted as she ran forward and grabbed Lorenz's arm, hoping to break Lorenz's grip on Ryoga.  
Lorenz looked at Rei and slapped her out of the way, hitting her hard enough to knock her out. "I'll deal with you later. You are the key, my dear. You will cause the Third Impact! You are my ticket to a higher existence!" He turned his attention back Ryoga who was struggling to free himself.  
"It's useless to struggle! You are going to die!" Lorenz sneered, his voice echoing in the vast room, "Whatever you do, you will not be able to trick me! I have been around for thousands of years! I know all about you and your friend! I am just like you except I've seen it all and been through it all!"  
Ryoga noticed out of the corner of his eye someone entering the room. It was Ranma and Asuka.  
"I'm not scared of you!" Ryoga shouted, spitting right into Lorenz's face, "I don't care who you are! I'm not scared of dying! I will much rather die saving lives than to live without trying!" He hoped Ranma understood the meaning of his words.  
He saw Asuka grab Rei and slowly drag her out of the room. He saw Ranma grab Shinji and drag him out too. After a moment later he saw Ranma enter the room again and grab Ritsuko's dying body, slowly and silently dragging her out of the room.  
Ryoga slowly waited for his chance. Once he had the chance he would use a seppukku to destroy this entire room and everything with it. Whoever this guys was, surely, he would not survive.  
"Here," Ranma said softly to Asuka as she came back into the room, "Take Shinji and Rei to safety. Ryoga and I'll stop this guy,"  
Misato, when she had regained consciousness, had explained in a weak voice what everything was about to Ranma, who was slowly awakening from his unconsciousness. She explained about how Gendo had wanted to create the Third Impact. About how Rei had died self-destructing her EVA. About how the Rei Gendo had taken was going to be used to start the Third Impact.  
Ranma, knowing that so much was at stake, knew he had to do whatever he could to stop this man from starting the Third Impact, despite his injuries. Clutching his ribs, Ranma slowly made his way up to Lorenz from behind, all his ki flowing toward his one hand. He would concentrate all his ki into on last punch and knock Lorenz's head right of his shoulders. He knew he had to stop this man. At any moment, everything would be vaporized when Unit-02 finally self-destructed. Lorenz continued to sneer at Ryoga, "Well, how does it feel? To know that you're going to die?"  
Ryoga smiled. That seemed to shock Lorenz.  
Ranma tapped Lorenz's shoulder.  
When Lorenz turned his head, he saw Ranma smiling mockingly at him.  
"Surprise, you're dead!" Ranma smirked, tears in his eyes.  
Ranma cocked his glowing red fist and punched Lorenz square in that ugly mug of his. He put more ki behind his punch than any thing he had ever done before, putting more ki behind it than a seppukku blast. When Ranma's fist struck Lorenz's face, collapsing the man's skull in, a massive explosion erupted. Lorenz managed to scream but the sound of his voice was drowned out by the sound of the explosion as it consumed his body, ripping it apart, the explosion then expanding to envelope the entire room. An explosion akin to Ranma and Ryoga's seppukku blasts erupted against Lorenz's face and continued to expand in a spherical shape in every direction.  
Asuka, whom had been outside of the room, fell to the ground from the violent shaking that that explosion had created. Curious as to what it was, she peeked her head in through the huge opening and saw a wall of flames moving straight toward her.  
Knowing that she would never be able to outrun it, she closed her eyes and prayed that that her death would be swift and painless.  
Out of nowhere, a bright light appeared in front of her. As fast as it appeared, it disappeared, leaving behind Ranma, who had Ryoga slumped over his shoulder. He didn't have a chance to do anything else except grab Asuka and Rei with one hand, grabbing Shinji and the motionless Ritsuko with the other.  
As soon as his hands touched them, he looked down into the tiny mirror in his hand and closed his eyes and they all disappeared.

Ranma looked around.  
"God, what a mess," he commented, shaking his head.  
He and everyone else was on a cliff overlooking what remained of Tokyo 3. This cliff happened to be the exact same place Ranma had landed on when he first arrived in this world. It was before daybreak. As he looked at the city, he sighed. Actually, nothing remained of the city. All that had remained was a massive crater where the city collapsed in on itself, falling down to Geofront when Unit-02 had finally self-  
destructed. All that was left behind were ashes and a crater about five miles in radius and could bee seen. Several days had passed since that fateful day that changed everyone's life.  
Ranma turned toward the group, "Are you guys sure ya wanna come with us back to our world?" Misato, still in bandages, nodded weakly, "There's no reason for us to stay here anymore. None of us have any families. Our friends...we'll never see them again," She didn't want to really say much more. She had lost everything. She no longer had an apartment. She would probably never be able to see PenPen again.  
"I can't believe it," Ritsuko commented, "After all we've been through. All of it never really mattered. We were nothing more than simple tools for Seele,"  
Ritsuko was in pretty bad shape but would otherwise live. The bullet had luckily entered and exited through her, missing her vital organs. If it weren't for Ranma and Ryoga's knowledge of treating wounds, she would have probably have died from bleeding.  
Ranma continued to wait. He wanted to see the sunrise on this world one last time before he left. It would only be another half hour or so before the sky would glow a brilliant glow of red and they would finally leave this world before.  
"So what's gonna happen to this place?" Ranma asked.  
"The UN's gonna drop N2's over this entire place until the city's totally gone," Ritsuko said, "Now that the everything it out in the open, what with Seele's secret objective being revealed, someone's gonna get all the blame for all of this,"  
"The UN wants everyone to stay ignorant so they plan on destroying this entire city," Misato said, "Everyone who ever lived in this city, they have no idea of just how close we came to bein' wiped off this planet," Misato sighed, wincing a bit since it still pained her to breath.  
Asuka looked at Shinji. Shinji looked like a shadow of his former self.  
"S-Shinji, a-are you all right?"  
Shinji looked at Asuka and nodded a bit, "Yeah. I guess so...I-I dunno,"  
"He deserved it," Misato said, placing a gentle hand on Shinji's shoulder, "I'm sorry to say this, but...but your father deserved to die. All he ever cared about was himself and his goals. He used everyone to achieve it,"  
Shinji said in a soft voice, "I-I...I hated him. I-I always hated him. I-I-I'm glad he died. I-I'm glad I was the one who killed him," All of a sudden, he broke down and started crying.  
Rei placed a hand on his shoulder, "It's okay to cry, Shinji."  
Ranma looked at Rei, a smirk on his lips, "So what's your story?"  
Rei looked at the ground for a moment before she spoke, "I'm not the Rei you know,"  
"No duh," Ranma said, "You act much different than the one I knew,"  
"The one you knew...she died," Rei said in a soft voice, "I'm...I'm her clone,"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "Well, there's really nothing wrong with that, being a clone and all,"  
"When I was...resurrected," Rei continued, "I kept all my memories from when I knew you. Commander Ikari tried to have all my memories removed and thought I wouldn't remember you or Ryoga, but I did. Because I remembered you...and all the good things you did for me, I realized that people do care about me, even more than Commander Ikari. I refused to help him because I realized he was only using me,"  
"Man, I can't believe how long we've been here," Ranma said, "Jeez, my sense of time sucks. I can't believe it...I've been here for several months. It only felt like I've been here for a month or so, including the time it took for us to find the nanban mirror,"  
Ryoga scratched his head, "Um, I still don't get it. Exactly how does all of this come together? I mean, that Angels, the EVAs, that big thing we saw at...what didja call it...Central Dogma,"  
"I'll explain it to you two someday," Misato said with a smile, "It's all pretty confusing,"  
Ranma shook his head, "No thank you. From what you told me, about how these Angels, which I really thought were aliens, were actually tests that God sent down from heaven to test humans, and this Human Compliment Project, and how that dick, Gendo, wanted to start the Third Impact...it's gonna give me a headache,"  
"Well, what's givin' me a headache was how you managed to survive that," Asuka said, silent until now.  
"Survived what?" Ranma said, "Oh, you mean that huge explosion? Well, it's pretty easy, at the moment I hit that...guy..."  
"His name was Lorenz. After what Asuka had described," Misato commented.  
"Yeah, Lorenz," Ranma said, "After I hit him, I used the nanban mirror to, um, I guess warp me and Ryoga out of the room. Once out of the room, I grabbed Asuka and Shinji and Rei and did it again warping outta that room and into the infirmary where I pick you and Ritsuko up and then finally warping all of us outta there and away to safety,"  
"But how didja manage to do all of that in such a little amount of time?" Ritsuko said. Thinking in logical terms, it must be an extremely taxing feat since Ranma had time working against him because the explosion would have been growing at an exponential rate.  
Ranma smiled and said, "It wasn't that hard. All I had to do was physically touch you. That's all,"  
"That nanban mirror in your possession," Ritsuko said, "That seems to be a rather powerful object to have. I wonder how come that item had never been exploited before,"  
Ranma shrugged his shoulder, "Well, it was always there to be exploited,"  
Misato looked at the horizon, "Look, there's the sunrise,"  
Ranma and Ryoga turned toward the rising sun. It looked beautiful.  
"It's just a lousy sunrise," Asuka muttered.  
Ranma walked over to Asuka and placed an arm around her shoulder, "C'mon Asuka, you've gotta be kiddin' me. You don't think that sunrise looks at all pretty?"  
Asuka seemed to be more aware of how close Ranma was to her than the sunrise, "Um, well, I suppose it is actually pretty,"  
"In my world," Ranma commented, "The sunrise looks just like that."  
"Speaking of your world," Misato began, "Um, how is it like?"  
Ranma smiled, "It's basically like this world but a lot more peaceful. You don't have to worry about Angels. You can basically enjoy life,"  
"Well, we saw the sunrise, are you guys ready to come along?" Ryoga asked.  
None of them seemed to be nervous. They all answered, "Yes,"  
"You do know, that as soon as you leave this world, there's a good chance you'll never come back," Ranma said, "I mean, you'll be leaving behind all your friends, your family, everyone,"  
"PenPen will get along just fine," Misato said cheerily.  
"Hikari, well, she has...Toji, even though he is a baka," Asuka said.  
"Everyone's going to be fine," Shinji said.  
"Shinji, you don't feel at all bad...about your father?" Ranma had to ask.  
Shinji thought about it for a moment. He then looked up right into Ranma's eyes and said, "No. I don't,"  
"Well, let's get outta here," Ranma said, "Since there's nothing left here, let's go," Ranma took out the mirror. He looked into it.  
Everyone disappeared in a brilliant burst of light.  
All of them will go to a better place.

Ranma and the others appeared on a nearby cliff as the sun began to rise beyond MegaTokyo.  
"This brings back memories," Ranma said in a soft voice, "This was the same cliff we were on when we came back to MegaTokyo several years ago," He walked off toward a trail not a far way off, "I'm in the mood to walking home,"  
"MegaTokyo," Misato said, "That's the name of this city?"  
Ranma nodded. "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure you'll be calling it something else,"  
"What's that?"  
"Home,"

The End


End file.
